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DePaul University has filed a Notice of Removal of the lawsuit against DePaul Law School. That lawsuit, which is attached to the Notice of Removal, alleges that DePaul Law School reported inaccurate job placement numbers on its website.
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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
JONATHAN PHILLIPS, BRIAN LOKER, ADAM SMESTAD, XAVIER HAILEY, BRENT DAVIDSON, SHELLYE TAYLOR, ALLISON LEARY, and AMMANUAL LUBA, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated,
Plaintiffs,
v.
DePAUL UNIVERSITY, a/k/a as DePAUL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LAW, and DOES 1-20,
Defendants.
Case No. 12-cv-1791 Honorable Judge: Magistrate Judge: Removed from the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois County Department, Chancery Division Cook Case No.: 12 CH 03523
__________________________________________________________________________
NOTICE OF REMOVAL
Defendant DePaul University, a/k/a DePaul University College of Law (“DePaul”),
removes the action captioned Jonathan Phillips, et al. v. DePaul University, a/k/a as DePaul
University College of Law and Does 1-20, Case No. 12 CH 03523, from the Circuit Court of
Cook County, Illinois, County Department, Chancery Division, to the United States District
Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1332,
1441, 1446, and 1453. In support of this notice, DePaul states:
BACKGROUND
1. This case is one of over a dozen putative class actions filed by plaintiffs’ counsel
around the country challenging law school reporting of graduate employment data pursuant to
standards set by the American Bar Association (“ABA”) as the accrediting agency selected by
the United States Department of Education (“DOE”) with respect to the federal Higher
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Education Act of 1965 (“HEA”), 20 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq.1 See 20 U.S.C. § 1099(b) (delegating
authority to the DOE to recognize accrediting agencies); 73 Fed. Reg. 11404, 11405 (Mar. 3,
2008) (recognizing the ABA as a nationally recognized accrediting agency).
2. The thrust of plaintiffs’ Complaint is that the ABA Section of Legal Education and
Admissions to the Bar, which is responsible for accrediting and regulating accredited law
schools, “has been largely derelict in its duties.” (Compl. ¶ 81.) Accordingly, their class action
Complaint seeks to remedy perceived deficiencies in reporting involving the entire “legal
education industry.” (Id. at ¶ 1 (“This action seeks to remedy a systemic, ongoing fraud that is
ubiquitous in the legal education industry ….”); see also id. at ¶ 10 (allegations referencing “De
Paul and the law school industry” and “De Paul – much like the rest of the law school
profession”); id. at ¶ 70 (“De Paul – like most law schools”).)
3. In the DePaul Complaint, plaintiffs assert claims under the Illinois Consumer Fraud
and Deceptive Business Practices Act (“ICFA”), 815 ILCS 505, et seq.; fraud; and negligent
misrepresentation. A true and correct copy of the DePaul Summons, Complaint and Exhibits is
attached hereto as Exhibit A.
4. Plaintiffs seek to represent a class consisting of: “All persons who are either
presently enrolled or have attended the De Paul University College of Law to obtain a JD degree
within the statutory period.” (Compl. ¶ 89.)2
1 Plaintiffs’ pattern Complaint against DePaul includes, likely by mistake, several allegations against
another defendant law school, Chicago-Kent (Compl. ¶ 88), and seeks judgment against Chicago-Kent (id. at ¶¶ 112, 125).
2 The applicable statutes of limitations range from three to five years. See Ko v. Eljer Inds., Inc., 287 Ill. App. 3d 35, 43 (1st Dist. 1997) (under Illinois law, a negligent misrepresentation claim must be brought within five years); McCarter v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 130 Ill. App. 3d 97, 100 (3d Dist. 1985) (under Illinois law, a fraud claim must be brought within five years); 815 ILCS 505/10a(3) (under Illinois law, an ICFA claim must be brought within three years).
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5. Plaintiffs seek damages in an unspecified amount, including the reimbursement of all
tuition paid to DePaul by the putative class, as well as other monetary, injunctive, and equitable
relief. (Id. at ¶ 15.)
6. Plaintiffs’ counsel have filed two other substantially similar suits in federal court,
asserting jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. (See Harnish v. Widener
University School of Law, No. 12-cv-00608-WHW-MCA (D.N.J. 2012) (Dkt. No. 1, Complaint
¶ 14); MacDonald, Jr. v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, No. 11-cv-00831-GJQ (W.D. Mich.
2011) (Dkt. No. 22, Amended Complaint ¶ 13).) True and correct copies of the Widener
Complaint and Cooley Amended Complaint are attached hereto as Exhibits B and C.
7. Plaintiffs’ counsel have indicated that they intend to expand their nationwide
litigation against the “legal education industry” by filing between 20 and 25 new lawsuits every
few months, and have commented that “[t]he key, right now, is to bring as many law schools as
possible into the fray.” (See Karen Sloan, THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL (Feb. 1. 2012), attached
hereto as Exhibit D.)
GROUNDS FOR REMOVAL
8. This case is subject to removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1453(b) and 28 U.S.C. § 1441,
which allow a class action to be removed to the district court of the United States for the district
and division within which such action is pending, provided that the district court has original
jurisdiction. This Court has original jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332.
Original Jurisdiction Under the Class Action Fairness Act
9. This Court has original jurisdiction pursuant to the Class Action Fairness Act of
2005 (“CAFA”), 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d), because: (a) the citizenship of at least one of the proposed
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class members is different from the defendant; (b) there are at least 100 members of the proposed
class; and (c) the matter in controversy exceeds $5 million.3
There Is Minimal Diversity.
10. The “minimal diversity” requirement in 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2)(A), which requires
that any member of the purported class of plaintiffs be a citizen of a State different from DePaul,
is satisfied. One of the named plaintiffs is a citizen of California, a second named plaintiff is a
citizen of Washington, D.C., and DePaul is a citizen of Illinois.4 (Compl. ¶ 19 (“Brian Loker is
licensed to practice in California and is currently a member in good standing of the California
Bar”); see also Patterson & Sheridan, LLP biography of Palo Alto Office associate Brian Loker,
attached hereto as Exhibit E; Compl. ¶ 22 (“Brent Davidson passed the Illinois Bar Exam and
currently lives in Washington, DC” where he is the “program director at the DC-based
International Security and Biopolicy Institute”); Compl. ¶ 26 (“Defendant De Paul is an ABA-
accredited law school and an Illinois not-for profit corporation with its principal place of
business in Chicago”).)
11. Apart from the allegations in the Complaint concerning the two named plaintiffs
who live and work outside of Illinois, several of plaintiffs’ exhibits to the Complaint further
implicate diversity with respect to members of the proposed class of DePaul law school alumni
and students. (See, e.g., Compl. Ex. 2 (“Popular employment locations for 2010 DePaul
graduates include California, Florida, Michigan, Texas and Washington, DC”); Compl. Ex. 3
(“Popular employment locations for 2009 DePaul graduates include California, Indiana,
Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Washington, DC, and Wisconsin.”); Compl. Ex. 4
3 Section 1332(d)(4), requiring that the Court decline to exercise jurisdiction, does not apply.
4 For purposes of removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1441, the citizenship of the defendants described as “DOES 1-20” is disregarded. See 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a) (“For purposes of removal under this chapter, the citizenship of defendants sued under fictitious names shall be disregarded.”).
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(“Popular employment locations for DePaul graduates include California, Colorado, Florida,
Indiana, Michigan, New York, Texas, Virginia, Washington, DC, and Wisconsin”); Compl. Ex.
2 (out-of-state enrollment for 2011 entering law school class was 45%); Compl. Ex. 3 (out-of-
state enrollment for 2010 entering law school class was 56%); Compl. Ex. 4 (out-of-state
enrollment for 2008 entering law school class was 53%).)5
There Are More Than 100 Members of The Proposed Class.
12. The requirement in 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(5)(B) is satisfied because there are more
than 100 members of the proposed class, which has been defined as: “[a]ll persons who are either
presently enrolled or have attended the De Paul University College of Law to obtain a JD degree
within the statutory period.” (Compl. ¶ 89 (class definition).) Plaintiffs have alleged that DePaul
“currently enrolls about 1,000 students.” (Id. at ¶10; see also Compl. Ex. 2 (total enrollment for
Fall 2011 J.D. Students was 992).)
There is At Least $5 Million In Controversy.
13. The “matter-in-controversy” requirement in 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2) is satisfied
because it is more likely than not that the aggregate claims of the putative class members exceed
$5 million exclusive of interest and costs. See Bloomberg v. Serv. Corp. Int’l, 639 F.3d 761, 763
(7th Cir. 2011) (case belongs in federal court after proponent provides plausible explanation for
how stakes exceed $5 million); see also Brill v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., 427 F.3d 446,
448-49 (7th Cir. 2005) (removing party need only show a reasonable probability that the stakes
exceed $5 million).
14. Plaintiffs seek damages in an unspecified amount, including the reimbursement of all
current and former students’ tuition paid to DePaul. (Compl. ¶ 15.) Even the most conservative
5 Plaintiffs’ exhibits to the Complaint do not provide out-of-state enrollment data for the 2009 entering law
school class.
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calculations of tuition paid during the statutory periods demonstrate that the matter in
controversy exceeds the $5 million jurisdictional threshold. The DePaul Complaint alleges that:
“the current tuition for De Paul is $41,240, excluding living expenses” and that DePaul students
graduate on average with $121,324 in loans. (Compl. ¶ 9; see also Compl. Ex. 2 (total
enrollment for Fall 2011 J.D. Students was 992: 807 full-time students and 185 part-time
students; Fall 2011 tuition was $41,240 for full-time J.D. students and $26,800 for part-time J.D.
students).)6
PROCEDURAL REQUIREMENTS FOR REMOVAL
15. DePaul is complying with all of the procedural requirements for removal under 28
U.S.C. § 1446.
16. In accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 1446(a), this is the appropriate court for removal
because the state court in which this action was commenced, the Circuit Court of Cook County,
Illinois, is within this Court’s district and division. Copies of all pleadings and orders served
upon DePaul in this action, including the Summons and Complaint, are attached as Exhibit A.
This Notice of Removal is signed pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11.
17. DePaul was served with a copy of the Complaint on February 14, 2012. Removal of
this action therefore is timely under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b) because the Notice of Removal is being
filed within 30 days of service of the Summons and Complaint.
18. Concurrently with the filing of this Notice of Removal, DePaul is giving written
notice to all parties of record and is filing a copy of this Notice of Removal with the court clerk
of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, as required by 28 U.S.C. § 1446(d).
19. The prerequisites for removal have been met.
6 Tuition payments of $41,240 per student for the 807 full-time students total $33,425,940.
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Dated: March 12, 2012
Respectfully submitted, Attorneys for Defendant DePaul University, a/k/a DePaul University College of Law /s/ Tina M. Tabacchi Lawrence C. DiNardo, #3128594 Tina M. Tabacchi, #6210961 JONES DAY 77 West Wacker Drive, Suite 3500 Suite 3500 Chicago, IL 60601 T: (312) 782-3939 F: (312) 782-8585 Email: lcdinardo@jonesday.com tmtabacchi@jonesday.com Norman B. Berger, #6180053 Michael D. Hayes, #6187607 VARGA BERGER LEDSKY HAYES & CASEY 125 S. Wacker Dr. Suite 2150 Chicago, IL 60606 T: (312) 341-9400 F: (312) 419-0225 Email: nberger@vblhc.com mhayes@vblhc.com
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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I hereby certify that I caused a copy of the foregoing Notice of Removal to be served this
12th day of March 2012, via electronic mail and U.S. mail to the following counsel of record:
Edward X. Clinton Sr. Edward X. Clinton Jr. The Clinton Law Firm 111 W. Washington St., Suite 1437 Chicago, Illinois 60602 eclinton@mac.com eclinton@aol.com
David Anziska The Law Offices of David Anziska 305 Broadway, 9th Floor New York, New York 10007 david@anziskalaw.com Jesse Strauss Strauss Law PLLC 305 Broadway, 9th Floor New York, New York 10007 jesse@strausslawpllc.com
By: /s/ Tina M. Tabacchi Tina M. Tabacchi JONES DAY 77 West Wacker, Suite 3500 Chicago, Illinois 60601 Attorney for Defendant DePaul University, a/k/a DePaul University College of Law
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EXHIBIT ADEPAUL SUMMONS, COMPLAINT AND
EXHIBITS
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EXHIBIT B HARNISH V. WIDENER UNIVERSITY SCHOOL
OF LAW COMPLAINT
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David S. Stone Eric H. Jaso Jason C. Spiro Stone & Magnanini LLP 150 JFK Parkway, Short Hills, NJ 07078 Phone (973) 218-1111 Facsimile (973) 218-1106 David Anziska The Law Offices of David Anziska 305 Broadway, 9th Fl. New York, NY 10007 Phone (212) 822-1496 Facsimile (212) 822-1437 Jesse Strauss Strauss Law PLLC 305 Broadway, 9th Fl. New York, NY 10007 Phone (212) 822-1496 Facsimile (212) 822-1437 Counsel for Plaintiffs, individually and for all others similarly situated
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
JOHN HARNISH, : Civil Action No._________________ JUSTIN SCHLUTH, : EDWARD GILSON, ROBERT : KLEIN, and ROBERT MACFADYEN, : on behalf of themselves : and all others similarly situated, : : CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT
Plaintiffs, : : v. : : JURY TRIAL DEMANDED
WIDENER UNIVERSITY SCHOOL : OF LAW, and : DOES 1-20, :
: Defendants. :
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Plaintiffs, on behalf of themselves and all other persons similarly situated, allege, based
on the investigation of counsel and their personal knowledge, as follows:
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants. . .” – Justice Louis Brandeis
1. This action seeks to remedy a systemic, ongoing fraud that is prevalant in the
legal education industry and threatens to leave a generation of law students in dire financial
straits. Essentially, Plaintiffs seek transparency in the way law schools report post-graduate
employment data and salary information, by immediately requiring that they make critical,
material disclosures which will give both prospective and current students a more accurate
picture of the value of their law school education and their likelihood of obtaining future
permanent placements in the legal profession.
2. With approximately 1,500 students, including over 450 part-time students, spread
across two campuses, Widener University School of Law (“WLS”) is one of the largest law
schools in the country. Indeed, WLS’s enormous class size is a point of pride for the school,
which boasts to prospective students that “[a]s a graduate of Widener Law, you’ll join a network
of more than 12,000 alumni in 50 states, the District of Columbia, and 15 countries and
territories who are using their Widener Law degrees to pursue successful, rewarding careers.”
Further, the school claims that “[o]ur graduates have established successful careers in traditional
legal fields, such as government and private practice, as well as in nontraditional legal positions,
such as presidents of large corporations, broadcast journalists, and administrators in higher
education and medicine.” “Our successful alumni are employed across the country as partners,
CEOs, CFOs, judicial law clerks, and top government attorneys,” and they are “happy to lend
their insight, expertise, and connections to our new law students.” All of these myriad
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opportunities and alumni connections, the school insists, result in a placement rate of well over
90 percent, a number which puts it on par with much higher ranked law schools.
3. The reality is very different. WLS fails to fulfill its placement claims. The vast
majority of WLS law students are not immediately placed in secure, full-time legal jobs
following graduation, As a result, WLS students do not receive the promised value of a WLS
degree. They are instead saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in non-dischargeable debt that
will take decades to pay off. The school has done this while misrepresenting and manipulating
its employment statistics to prospective students, employing the type of “Enron-style”
accounting techniques that would leave most for-profit companies facing government
investigations and the prospect of substantial civil fines. These deceptions are perpetuated so as
to prevent prospective students from realizing the obvious -- that attending WLS and paying
nearly $120,000 in tuition payments makes no economic sense.
4. Specifically, WLS, through both its print and Internet marketing materials, made
one fundamental uniform, written misrepresentation, claiming, with Madoff-like consistency,
that the overwhelming majority of its graduates during the class period -- roughly between 90
and 96 percent -- secure “employment” within nine months of graduation. The clear implication
is that employment means permanent employment in the legal profession. In reality, these
figures are false and/or misleading because they include any type of employment, including jobs
that have absolutely nothing to do with the legal industry, do not require a JD degree or are
temporary or part-time in nature. Rather, if WLS had disclosed the more pertinent employment
statistic -- i.e. those graduates who have secured full-time, permanent positions for which a JD
degree is required or preferred -- the numbers drop dramatically, and could be well below 40
percent, if not even lower.
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5. Compounding those problems, there has been no place where prospective students
can find WLS’s “real” employment numbers. The school supplies the same false and misleading
statistics to the U.S. News & World Report (“US News”) and the American Bar Association
(“ABA”), the two primary sources of information for law school employment data. Using the
data provided by WLS, the ABA and U.S. News report as “employed” those who have secured
employment in any capacity in any kind of job, no matter how unrelated to the legal field.
6. WLS’s representations about employment and placement data have been false
and/or misleading for the following reasons:
a) WLS’s reported placement rates have remained consistently steady
following the aftermath of the “Great Recession,” as its reported placement rates were 94 percent
for the Class of 2009 and 93 percent for the Class of 2010. Currently, the legal employment
market is highly oversaturated, with law schools churning out 43,000 JD degrees each year, even
though roughly half as many jobs are available (26,000). Yet, with legal jobs becoming
increasingly scarce, WLS, instead of telling the sobering truth to prospective and current
students, continues to make the fantastical claim that the overwhelming majority of its graduates
are gainfully employed in the legal profession.
b) As set forth in detail below, the employment and salary data reported by
WLS are starkly at odds with employment statistics reported by the National Association of Law
Placement (“NALP”) -- 40 percent for law school graduates who secure full-time, permanent
legal employment -- despite its ranking in the fourth or bottom tier of all accredited law schools
by US News.
7. Unfortunately, WLS’s false and fraudulent representations and omissions are
apparently endemic in the law school industry. It is an industry secret that law schools employ a
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variety of deceptive practices and accounting legerdemain to make themselves more attractive to
prospective students, including, among other things, hiring recent unemployed graduates as
“research assistants” or providing them with “public interest” stipends so as to classify them as
employed, excluding graduates who do not supply employment information from employment
surveys, refusing to categorize unemployed graduates who are not “actively” seeking
employment as unemployed, and classifying graduates who have only secured temporary, part-
time employment as being “fully” employed.
8. Similarly, by misrepresenting its employment data, WLS created an impression of
a bountiful employment opportunity that in reality does not exist, and caused Plaintiffs to
overvalue the prospects of their WLS education and take on substantial debt to finance their
WLS education. According to US News, WLS students graduate on average with a whopping
$111,909 in loans, placing them in the top 30th percentile of indebtedness among all law school
graduates. The 2010-2011 tuition for Widener was $34,890, excluding fees and living expenses,
making it one of the most expensive law schools in the country.
9. To a remarkable degree, WLS and the law school industry in general have been
astonishingly successful in deceiving prospective students about the value of a law degree in an
effort to maintain and increase both enrollment and tuition. Last year, a record 51,426 first-year
students enrolled in law schools, up by over 60 percent from 1971, while WLS’s enrollment has
held steady throughout the recession. Additionally, tuition at WLS -- much like the rest of the
law school industry -- has risen exponentially over the past two decades, far exceeding both
inflation and any increase in attorneys’ starting salaries, and since 2006 alone has increased by
about 20 percent.
10. The dramatic increase in law school tuition has dovetailed with the dramatic
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increase in faculty compensation. Law school deans are perhaps the best remunerated in
academia today, enjoying both lavish perks and exorbitant salaries that rival those of Fortune 500
executives. For example, during the fiscal 2009 year, WLS’s dean Linda Ammons earned a
staggering $305,761 in total compensation.
11. Senator Barbara Boxer of California and Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa have
each sent multiple letters to the President of the ABA, taking the organization to task for failing
to properly police law schools. Additionally, a coalition of 55 law school student body
presidents have sent to Congress proposed legislation that would, among other things, create new
reporting standards for employment data, require law schools to submit annual employment
reports to the Department of Education (“DOE”), and empower the DOE to audit these reports.
12. Accordingly, Plaintiffs now assert claims for violations of: a) Delaware’s
Deceptive Trade Practices Act, 6 Del. C. §§2531-36, et seq. Plaintiffs seek damages and
equitable relief on behalf of the Class (as defined in paragraph herein), which includes
but is not limited to the following: refunding and reimbursing current and former students for
tuition paid to WLS; an order enjoining WLS from continuing to market false and inaccurate
employment data and salary information; an order requiring that WLS retain a third party to
independently audit all employment and salary data;; costs and expenses, including attorneys’ and
experts’ fees;; and any additional relief that this Court determines to be necessary or appropriate
to provide complete relief to Plaintiffs and the proposed class.
JURISDICTION AND VENUE
13. This Court has subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1332 and
1367, because the Plaintiffs reside in various states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and
are therefore diverse from Defendant WLS which is based in Delaware, and the amount in
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controversy exceeds the sum or value of $75,000.
14. This Court has original jurisdiction over this action under the Class Action
Fairness Act of 2005, 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2)(“CAFA”), as to the named Plaintiffs and every
member of the Class, because the proposed Class contains more than 100 members, the
aggregate amount of controversy exceeds $5 million, and members reside across the U.S. and are
therefore diverse from the Defendants. For the class of 2010, only 16 percent of graduates
practiced in Delaware, while 57 percent practiced in Pennsylvania and 16 percent practiced in
New Jersey.
15. The Court has personal jurisdiction over Defendant WLS, because they have
purposefully availed themselves of the privilege of conducting activities in the forum, such as a
deliberate targeting of the forum through advertisements, and therefore have significant
minimum contacts with this state. Indeed, they have availed themselves to the laws and markets
of New Jersey through the promotion, marketing and advertising of WLS in this State and on the
Internet to consumers in New Jersey.
16. Venue is proper within this district pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1391(a)(2), because a
substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to Plaintiffs’ claims occurred in this
District.
PARTIES
I. Plaintiffs
17. John Harnish currently works as a bartender in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who
lives in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Mr. Harnish graduated from WLS’s Delaware Campus
in 2009, and in total paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees to the school while
incurring tens of thousands of dollars of debt. In applying and deciding to remain enrolled at
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WLS, Mr. Harnish relied on salary data and employment information posted on WLS’s website,
marketing material and/or disseminated to third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such
as the ABA and US News, and specifically relied on WLS’s representations that, depending on
the year, approximately 90-95 percent of its graduates were employed within nine months of
graduation. Indeed, prior to Mr. Harnish enrolling in WLS, the school represented that about 90
percent of 2005 graduates secured employment within nine months of graduation, and while Mr.
Harnish was enrolled in WLS the school posted on its website an employment report asserting
that 96 percent of 2007 graduates secured employment within nine months of graduation.
Furthermore, Mr. Harnish when applying and deciding to remain enrolled in WLS was unaware
that the school’s reported placement rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or
employment for which a JD was not required or preferred -- employment Mr. Harnish would
have been eligible for even without obtaining a JD degree and paying WLS’s tuition. Had Mr.
Harnish been aware that WLS’s reported placement rates included temporary and part-time
employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or preferred, he would have
elected to either pay less to WLS or perhaps not attend the school at all. Following his
graduation, faced with bleak prospects for full-time legal employment, Mr. Harnish decided to
continue to work as a bartender.
18. Justin Schluth is currently unemployed. He lives in New Jersey and is a member
in good standing of the Pennsylvania Bar. Mr. Schluth graduated from WLS’s Delaware campus
in 2010, and in total paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees to the school while
incurring tens of thousands of dollars of debt. In applying and deciding to remain enrolled at
WLS, Mr. Schluth relied on employment data and salary information posted on WLS’s website
and/or disseminated to third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US
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News. In applying and deciding to remain enrolled at WLS, Mr. Schluth relied on salary data
and employment information posted on WLS’s website, marketing material and/or disseminated
to third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US News, and
specifically relied on WLS’s representations that, depending on the year, approximately 90-95
percent of its graduates were employed within nine months of graduation. Indeed, prior to Mr.
Schluth enrolling in WLS, the school represented that about 90 percent of 2005 graduates
secured employment within nine months of graduation, and while Mr. Schluth was enrolled in
WLS the school posted on its website an employment report asserting that 96 percent of 2007
graduates secured employment within nine months of graduation. Furthermore, Mr. Schluth
when applying and deciding to remain enrolled in WLS was unaware that the school’s reported
placement rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for which a
JD was not required or preferred -- employment Mr. Schluth would have been eligible for even
without obtaining a JD degree and paying WLS’s tuition. Had Mr. Schluth been aware that
WLS’s reported placement rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or
employment for which a JD was not required or preferred, he would have elected to either pay
less to WLS or perhaps not attend the school at all. Following his graduation from law school,
Mr. Schluth continued his education at WLS, where he completed an LLM in 2010. Currently,
he is looking to secure full-time, permanent legal employment, which he has not received despite
being admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar.
19. Edward Gilson currently lives and works in Philadelphia and is a member in good
standing of the Pennsylvania Bar. Mr. Gilson graduated from WLS’s Delaware campus in 2009,
and in total paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees to the school while incurring tens
of thousands of dollars of debt. In applying and deciding to remain enrolled at WLS, Mr. Gilson
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relied on employment data and salary information posted on WLS’s website and/or disseminated
to third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US News. In applying
and deciding to remain enrolled at WLS, Mr. Gilson relied on salary data and employment
information posted on WLS’s website, marketing material and/or disseminated to third-party
data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US News, and specifically relied on
WLS’s representations that, depending on the year, approximately 90-95 percent of its graduates
were employed within nine months of graduation. Indeed, prior to Mr. Gilson enrolling in WLS,
the school represented that about 90 percent of 2005 graduates secured employment within nine
months of graduation, and while Mr. Gilson was enrolled in WLS the school posted on its
website an employment report asserting that 96 percent of 2007 graduates secured employment
within nine months of graduation. Furthermore, Mr. Gilson when applying and deciding to
remain enrolled in WLS was unaware that the school’s reported placement rates included
temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or
preferred -- employment Mr. Gilson would have been eligible for even without obtaining a JD
degree and paying WLS’s tuition. Had Mr. Gilson been aware that WLS’s reported placement
rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for which a JD was not
required or preferred, he would have elected to either pay less to WLS or perhaps not attend the
school at all. Following his graduation from law school, Mr. Gilson could not find a permanent
position in the legal industry, despite sending out hundreds of resumes. He currently owns and
operates his own law firm.
20. Robert Klein currently works in a non-legal position with the Federal
Government. He is licensed to practice in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and is a member in
good standing of both state bars. He currently lives in New Jersey and works in Philadelphia.
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Mr. Klein graduated from WLS’s Delaware campus in 2009, and in total paid tens of thousands
of dollars in tuition and fees to the school while incurring tens of thousands of dollars of debt. In
applying and deciding to remain enrolled at WLS, Mr. Klein relied on employment data and
salary information posted on WLS’s website and/or disseminated to third-party data
clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US News. In applying and deciding to
remain enrolled at WLS, Mr. Klein relied on salary data and employment information posted on
WLS’s website, marketing material and/or disseminated to third-party data clearinghouses and
publications, such as the ABA and US News, and specifically relied on WLS’s representations
that, depending on the year, approximately 90-95 percent of its graduates were employed within
nine months of graduation. Indeed, prior to Mr. Klein enrolling in WLS, the school represented
that about 90 percent of 2005 graduates secured employment within nine months of graduation,
and while Mr. Klein was enrolled in WLS the school posted on its website an employment report
asserting that 96 percent of 2007 graduates secured employment within nine months of
graduation. Furthermore, Mr. Klein when applying and deciding to remain enrolled in WLS was
unaware that the school’s reported placement rates included temporary and part-time
employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or preferred -- employment
Mr. Klein would have been eligible for even without obtaining a JD degree and paying WLS’s
tuition. Had Mr. Klein been aware that WLS’s reported placement rates included temporary and
part-time employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or preferred, he
would have elected to either pay less to WLS or perhaps not attend the school at all. Following
his graduation from law school, Mr. Klein could not find a permanent position in the legal
industry, despite sending out hundreds of resumes.
21. Robert MacFadyen lives in Bergen County, New Jersey and currently works for
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a management company in a non-legal capacity. Mr. MacFadyen graduated from WLS’s
Harrisburg campus in 2008, and in total paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees to
the school while incurring tens of thousands of dollars of debt. In applying and deciding to
remain enrolled at WLS, Mr. MacFadyen relied on employment data and salary information
posted on WLS ’s website and/or disseminated to third-party data clearinghouses and
publications, such as the ABA and US News. In applying and deciding to remain enrolled at
WLS, Mr. MacFadyen relied on salary data and employment information posted on WLS’s
website, marketing material and/or disseminated to third-party data clearinghouses and
publications, such as the ABA and US News, and specifically relied on WLS’s representations
that, depending on the year, approximately 90-95 percent of its graduates were employed within
nine months of graduation. Indeed, prior to Mr. MacFadyen enrolling in WLS, the school
represented that about 90 percent of 2004 graduates secured employment within nine months of
graduation, and while Mr. MacFadyen was enrolled in WLS the school posted on its website an
employment report asserting that 90 percent of 2005 graduates secured employment within nine
months of graduation. Furthermore, Mr. MacFadyen when applying and deciding to remain
enrolled in WLS was unaware that the school’s reported placement rates included temporary and
part-time employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or preferred --
employment Mr. MacFadyen would have been eligible for even without obtaining a JD degree
and paying WLS’s tuition. Had Mr. MacFadyen been aware that WLS’s reported placement
rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for which a JD was not
required or preferred, he would have elected to either pay less to WLS or perhaps not attend the
school at all. Following his graduation from law school, Mr. MacFadyen could not find a
position in the legal industry, despite sending out hundreds of resumes.
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II. Defendants
22. Defendant WLS is an ABA accredited law school based in Wilmington, Delaware
with a satellite campus in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. All policies and procedures, including the
content of its marketing materials, are issued from its Wilmington campus. For the 2010-2011
academic year, it enrolled approximately 1,450 students, including 455 part-time students, and
currently it enrolls approximately 1,600 students. About 1,100 students attend the Wilmington
campus, which was founded in 1971, and 500 students attend its Harrisburg campus, which was
founded in 1989.
23. Tuition at WLS for the 2010-2011 was $34,890 for full-time students, while room
and board is estimated to be about at least $20,000 if not more, bringing the total annual cost for
attending WLS to approximately $55,000.
24. The true names and capacities (whether individual, corporate, associate or
otherwise) of Defendants Does 1 though 20, inclusive, are unknown to Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs sue
these Defendants by fictitious names and will seek leave to amend this Complaint after their
identities are learned. Each fictitious Defendant contributed to the acts and practices alleged
herein. Plaintiffs are informed and believe that the fictitiously named Defendants proximately
caused Plaintiffs’ damages.
FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
25. Enrolling roughly 1,600 students annually, WLS’ enrollment has risen
dramatically over the past few decades. WLS currently enrolls one of the largest student bodies
in the country.
26. According to US News, WLS has some of the lowest admissions standards of any
accredited or provisionally accredited law school. For 2010, it accepted approximately 59
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percent of all applicants, one of the highest acceptance rates of any law school. Its median LSAT
score is 151 and median GPA is 3.14, both of which are well within bottom of all schools.
27. Nevertheless, WLS does not apparently strive to keep these multitudes of
students. In 2008, for example, approximately 23 percent of the roughly 1,500 students who
enrolled in WLS failed to matriculate for their second year, while second-year students still
enjoyed an attrition rate of 2.3 percent.
28. WLS is part of the Widener University, a private, multi-campus university whose
main campus is in Chester, Pennsylvania, and which has campuses in Harrisburg, Exton and
Wilmington. The university enrolls in total 6,630 students per year, divided roughly evenly
between undergraduates and graduates.
29. WLS is accredited by the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to
the Bar. As mandated by Section 509(a) of the ABA’s 2010-2011 Standards for Approval of
Law Schools (“Section 509(a)”), an accredited law school must “publish basic consumer
information” in a “fair and accurate manner reflective of actual practice.”
30. WLS publishes its employment statistics on its website under the “Career
Services” tab. In posting the data, the school boasts to prospective students that “[a]s a graduate
of Widener Law, you’ll join a network of more than 12,000 alumni in 50 states, the District of
Columbia, and 15 countries and territories who are using their WLS degrees to pursue
successful, rewarding careers.” Further, the school claims that “[o]ur graduates have established
successful careers in traditional legal fields, such as government and private practice, as well as
in nontraditional legal positions, such as presidents of large corporations, broadcast journalists,
and administrators in higher education and medicine.” “Our successful alumni are employed
across the country as partners, CEOs, CFOs, judicial law clerks, and top government attorneys,”
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and they are happy to lend their insight, expertise, and connections to our new law students.” All
of these myriad opportunities and alumni connections, the school insists, result in a placement
rate of well over 90 percent, a number which puts it on par with much higher ranked law schools.
31. Currently, WLS posts on its website the employment data and salary information
for the class of 2010. See WLS’s 2010 Employment Data (the “2010 Employment Report”)
(attached as Ex. 1). This information is obtained by job surveys that WLS sends out to all recent
graduates, and all information contained in this report is unaudited, unverified and self-reported.
According to the 2010 Employment Report, approximately 93 percent of the class were
employed or pursuing advanced degrees within nine months of graduation, including 52 percent
in private practice, five percent in business, ten percent in government, six percent in public
interest and 27 percent in judicial clerkships.
32. Throughout the Class period, the placement numbers are equally as inflated. For
example, for the class of 2007, approximately 96 percent of the class were employed or pursuing
advanced degrees within nine months of graduation, including 49 percent in private practice,
seven percent in business, thirteen percent in government, three percent in public interest and 30
percent in judicial clerkships. See WLS’s 2007 Employment Data (the “2007 Employment
Report”) (attached as Ex. 2).
33. For the classes of 2008 and 2009, WLS enjoyed placement rates well above 90
percent and the national average. See WLS’s 2008-2009 Employment Profile (the “2008-2009
Employment Profile”) (attached as Ex. 3).
34. If anything, WLS’s employment record has increased over the past decade,
despite the economic turbulence since 2008. For example, WLS’s placement rates for the classes
of 2004 and 2005 were 90 percent respectively. See WLS’s Employment Data for Class of 2004
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& 2005 (the “2004 & 2005 Employment Reports” (attaching Ex. 4).
35. Thus, the employment data posted by WLS during the Class period makes a
number of startling factual omissions that would give prospective students a more accurate
picture of their post-graduation employment prospects. Indeed, WLS simply presents an overall
employment number, and fails to break down what percentage of graduates were employed in
either part-time or temporary positions, or whether a job requires a JD degree. Accordingly,
based on these classifications, a graduate could be working as a barista in Starbucks -- or toiling
away in any capacity in any kind of job, no matter how menial or poorly compensated or
unrelated to law -- and would be deemed employed and working in “business,” even though such
employment is clearly temporary in nature and obviously does not require a JD degree.
Similarly, a contract attorney who has yet to secure permanent employment and is forced to toil
away in transitory document review projects would be deemed “employed” under WLS’s broad
guidelines.
36. The school also disseminates misleading employment data and salary information
to other sources that are advertised and readily available to prospective students. In general,
there are three primary sources that WLS -- along with all other accredited law schools --
provides such information to: US News, the ABA and the National Association of Law
Placement (“NALP)”.1
37. Based on data supplied by WLS, the ABA reported that 86 percent of 2005 WLS
graduates, 82 percent of 2006 WLS graduates, 84 percent of 2007 WLS graduates, 90 percent of
2008 WLS graduates and 90 percent of 2009 WLS graduates secured employment within nine
1 All ABA-accredited and provisionally-accredited law schools are required to provide
employment data to the ABA, but only submit such data to U.S. News and NALP on a voluntary basis.
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months of graduation, while U.S. News reported that 83 percent of 2006 WLS graduates, 88.5
percent of 2007 WLS graduates, 91 percent of 2008 WLS graduates and 78 percent of 2009
WLS graduates secured employment within nine months of graduation.
38. In a letter sent to the deans of all accredited law schools, Brian Kelly, the editor-
in-chief of the US News, essentially conceded this point, acidly noting that the “entire law school
sector is perceived to be less than candid” when reporting employment data, and that many
schools appear “not to treat the ABA reporting rules with the seriousness one would assume.”
Robert Morse, “U.S. News Urges Law School Deans to Improve Employment Data,” U.S. News
& World Report, March 9, 2011. Acknowledging the obvious, Kelly concluded, “Perhaps we
need metrics besides total employment rates to evaluate a successful law program.” Id.
39. The employment data provided to US News constitutes 18 percent (four percent
for the employment rate upon graduation and 14 percent for the rate nine months after
graduation) of a law school’s ranking in US News, the second most important factor after a law
school’s peer assessment.
40. According to the 2009 and 2010 NALP National Summary Reports, law schools
must respond to the NALP questionnaire by specifically breaking down the exact type of
employment their graduates have obtained, differentiating between part-time and full-time jobs
or whether a position requires a JD degree. See NALP Class of 2009 National Summary Report
(“2009 NALP Employment Report”) & NALP Class of 2010 National Summary Report (“2010
NALP Employment Report”).
41. In other words, WLS has been breaking down its employment data into various
disaggregated categories, such as whether a is or part-time or JD preferred. See 2010
Employment Survey (see Ex. 3). Yet, rather than disclosing this data on its website and
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marketing material it makes available to public at large, the school presented highly misleading
data to prospective and current students that grossly inflate post-graduation employment rates
and salary information while depicting an unrealistic, if not entirely inaccurate, picture of
bountiful career prospects that do not exist.
42. In reality, the employment data reported and marketed by WLS bears little
resemblance to the actual experiences and dim employment opportunities encountered by their
recent graduates. Perhaps fewer than 40 percent -- if not even fewer -- of recent WLS graduates
secure full-time, permanent employment for which a JD degree is required or preferred within
nine months of graduating, and that the majority of them work in either part-time or temporary
positions.
43. Indeed, there is no better proof that WLS manipulates its employment data than
the fact that the school’s placement rate remained eerily steady at 94 percent in 2008 and 2009
and 93 percent in 2010 following the aftermath of the “Great Recession,” which wreaked havoc
on the legal market, leading to thousands of mass layoffs.
44. Moreover, an examination of the 2009 NALP Employment Report confirms the
obvious -- i.e. that WLS manipulates employment data, and that substantially fewer than 90-plus
percent of 2009 and 2010 graduates are gainfully employed.
45. Still, even that number is subject to manipulation, since the NALP data is based
on unaudited, unverified, self-reported information. In actuality, if law schools were required to
employ proper scientific methodologies to ascertain the true employment status of all of their
graduates -- i.e. by actually speaking to each graduate instead of relying on self-reported data
from those who actually supply it -- the employment number would be much lower.
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46. Moreover, upon information and belief, WLS tabulates, calculates and tallies the
raw data inputted in the job surveys filled out by recent graduates in a shoddy, slipshod manner,
choosing to omit or ignore critical statistical data that would substantially lower both placement
rates and salary information reported both in its employment reports and distributed to third-
party data clearinghouses.
47. One must also bear in mind that the NALP employment number includes data
supplied by all law schools, many of which are ranked higher and have considerably more
prestige than WLS, which is currently ranked by US News in the bottom or fourth tier of all
accredited and provisionally accredited law schools. As such, logic dictates that WLS’s true
employment rate would be significantly below the statistical mean of the bell curve.
48. Upon information and belief, WLS has also employed a limited program to
further manipulate their employment numbers, by, among other things, hiring unemployed
graduates as “research assistants” or other “make work” positions for a specified period of time,
so as to classify them as “employed” in various employment surveys. In some instances, upon
information and belief, these internships begin in the ninth month following graduation, right
before WLS would be required to report its employment data to the ABA, NALP and US News.
49. WLS’s manipulation of employment data is particularly troubling considering that
its students are graduating in one of the grimmest legal job markets in decades. Since 2008
alone, the largest 250 law firms in the country have eliminated 10,000 positions, while
commoditized, legal-entry work such as document review is increasingly being outsourced to
countries outside the US, such as India. The entry-level employment offer rate for 2009 summer
associates was at a historic low of 69 percent, as compared to 90 percent in 2008 and 93 percent
in 2007. Scores of law firms have cancelled summer programs, and in a recent survey 55 percent
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of law schools reported a decrease of 30 percent or more of the number of firms doing on-
campus interviews, an unprecedented decline. In another survey, only 3 percent of on-campus
recruiters indicated that they were looking to hire third-year law students, as compared to 25
percent in 2008 and 42 percent in 2007.
50. At the same time WLS manipulates its data, its students are saddling themselves
with tens of thousands of dollars in huge, non-dischargeable debt. According to US News, WLS
students graduate on average with a staggering $111,909 in loans, placing them well within the
top 30th percentile of indebtedness among all law school graduates, with a stunning 91 percent of
them taking out loans to attend the school.5 Nationwide, the debt burden of law school graduates
continues to rise unabated, and the average debt burden for all law school graduates is almost
$100,000, up sharply from $16,000 in 1987.
51. Worse yet, WLS is primarily marketing its product to naïve, relatively
unsophisticated consumers -- many of whom are barely removed from college -- who are often
making their first “big-ticket” purchase based on asymmetrical information. These prospective
students are applying to law school with one objective in mind: to attain the kind of job that
provides compensation and a lifestyle that is commensurate with and worthy of the enormous
time, money and personal sacrifice invested in a legal education. However, if WLS was to
5According to FinAid.org, a graduate needs to make at least $138,000 annually to repay $100,000 without enduring financial hardship, or $92,000 annually to repay the debt with financial difficultly. See http://www.finaid.org.calculators/loanpayments/phtml. According to a recently published paper by Jim Chen, the Dean of the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, a student would have to earn three times a law school’s annual tuition to make the investment of attending law school economically worthwhile. Karen Sloan, “Law School, a Ticket to Economic Security? Better Run the Numbers,” The National Law Journal, December 12, 2011; see also Jim Chen, “A Degree of Practical Wisdom: The Rate of Educational Debt to Income as a Basic Measurement of Law School Graduates’ Economic Viability,” William Mitchell Law Review, Vol. 38, 2012. For example, for a student who attends a law school with an annual tuition of $40,000 -- i.e. the tuition at most private schools -- that would mean he would need to earn at least $120,000 to make the investment worthwhile.
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disclose accurate employment data and the steep odds its graduates face in securing gainful
employment, it would become abundantly clear to any rational purchaser how poor of an
investment attending WLS actually is.
52. Currently, WLS enrolls approximately 1,600 students, a number which has
remained remarkably constant even since the onset of the “Great Recession”. Law schools
awarded over 44,000 JD degrees in 2010, a more than 16 percent increase from 2002, while the
number of students taking the law school entrance examination (LSAT) increased by over 20
percent between 2007 and 2009. For the 2009-2010 academic year, a record 154,549 students
enrolled in American law schools, including a record 51,426 first-year students, up by over 60
percent from the 91,225 students who enrolled in ABA accredited law schools in 1971. The total
number of law schools has increased by nine percent over the past decade and by over 25 percent
over the past four decades, and, despite the ominous employment trends and dearth of available
jobs, there are a handful of new law schools that are slated to open their doors in the next few
years. Allowing the status quo to persist will almost certainly ensure that tens of thousands of
law school graduates -- a whole “lost” generation of lawyers -- will continue to be churned out
over the next decade with little realistic chance of ever earning back their investment.6
53. Fortunately, after much public hand-wringing and increased media scrutiny, the
tectonic plates in the legal profession have finally begun to shift, as practitioners and politicians
6 Finally, after years of steady growth, law school applications for the 2011-2012 academic year dropped by 10 percent. See Nathan Koppel, “Bloom’s Off Law School Rope,” Wall Street Journal Law Blog, September 28, 2011, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/09/28/bloom-remains-off-law-school-rose/. Undoubtedly, this stems from the recent upsurge in media scrutiny on the inability of law school graduates to obtain gainful employment and the overall grim reality of one of the worst legal job market in decades. See e.g. David Segal, “Is Law School a Losing Game?” New York Times, January 8, 2011.
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alike are starting to roundly demand that law schools change their deceptive ways and accurately
report all available employment information.
54. Senator Barbara Boxer of California has sent three separate letters to the ABA
taking them to task for failing to properly police the law school industry. See Letters from
Senator Barbara Boxer to Stephen Zack, dated March 31, 2011 & May 20, 2011 (attached as Ex.
5). In her May 20th letter, she directly implored the ABA to require that all law schools
independently audit and verify employment data and salary information that are either included
in marketing material to prospective students or disseminated to third-party information
clearinghouses and publications, such as US News and the ABA. In her third letter sent on
October 6, 2011, she further admonished the organization for “resorting to half measures instead
of tackling a major problem head on” despite the deafening public outcry for greater scrutiny in
the way law schools disclose placement rates. See Letter from Senator Barbara Boxer to Wm. T.
Robinson III, dated October 6, 2011 (attached as Ex. 6). Senator Boxer has even reached across
the aisle with her colleague Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to ask the Department of
Education to step in and investigate the law school industry for its systemic failure to properly
disclose employment prospects to prospective and current students. See Letter from Senator
Barbara Boxer & Senator Tom Coburn to Kathleen Tighe, dated October 13, 2011 (attached as
Ex. 7).
55. Similarly, a coalition of 55 law school student body presidents have sent to
Congress proposed legislation that would ensure “enhanced accuracy, accountability and
transparency in the reporting of data pertaining to legal education.” See Student Bar
Association’s Proposed Bill (“SBA Bill”) and accompanying Press Release (attached as Ex. 8).
Among other things, the proposed legislation creates a new standard for reporting employment
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data, requires law schools to submit annual employment reports to the Department of Education,
mandates that law school deans personally endorse such reports, and empowers the DOE to audit
the reports. The SBA Bill expressly aims to parallel federal securities laws, where publicly-held
companies must submit annual reports to the SEC disclosing material financial information.
56. The problem has gotten so out of hand that Bill Hebert, President of the California
Bar Association, in a much publicized article in the California Bar Journal, exhorts law school
deans to adopt more rigorous reporting standards by disclosing the type of detailed employment
and salary data that would allow students to get a realistic picture of their post-graduate financial
situation. Bill Hebert, “What is the Value of the Law Degree?” California Bar Journal, February
2011(attached as Ex. 9). Hebert chides schools for “hiding employment outcomes in aggregate
statistical forms,” and impresses upon them the need to reveal the exact percentage of their
graduates who have actually obtained full-time, permanent employment -- the type of
information Plaintiffs are now seeking. Id.
57. Along these lines, Howard B. Miller, the previous President of the California
Bar, went so far as to all but accuse law schools of committing fraud in the way they tabulate and
report employment information to third party data clearinghouses like the ABA and U.S. News.
Specifically, he wrote in the California Bar Journal: “There is notoriously unreliable self-
reporting by law schools and their graduates of employment statistics. They are unreliable in
only one direction, since the self reporting by law schools of ‘employment’ of graduates at
graduation and then nine months after graduation are, together, a significant factor in the U.S.
News rankings -- which are obsessed over, despite denials, by law schools and their
constituencies. The anecdotes are as telling as the statistics: prestigious lawyers in the state are
hiring their own children to work in their firms because even with their connections they were
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unable to find employment elsewhere.”
58. The ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar is responsible
for accrediting and regulating all accredited legal institutions. In general, the ABA has
absolutely no mechanism by which to address Plaintiffs’ claims, since law school students and
graduates are strictly prohibited from bringing such claims before the organization. Indeed, Rule
24 of the ABA Standards for Approval of Law Schools expressly states:
This process is not available to serve as a mediating or dispute-resolving process for persons with complaints about the policies or actions of an approved law school. The Council, Accreditation Committee and the Consultant on Legal Education will not intervene with an approved law school on behalf of an individual with a complaint against or concern about action taken by a law school that adversely affects that individual. The outcome of this process will not be the ordering of any individual relief for any person or specific action by a law school with respect to any individual. (Emphasis added). 8
59. The ABA’s Legal Education Council is dominated by law school deans, as both
its current chair, John O’Brien of the New England School of Law, and chair-elect, Kent
Syverud of the Washington University School of Law, are deans of large, prominent law schools.
Likewise, the committee of the Legal Education Council which is directly responsible for
regulating the reporting of post-graduate placement data – i.e. the Questionnaire Committee – is
dominated by law school deans and professors, including its current chair Dean Art Guadio of
the Western New England College School of Law. See generally Ex. 10 p. 2 (noting that legal
academics and university presidents and vice presidents comprise approximately 48, 52 and 64
percent of the three accreditation-related committees).
8 Similarly, Plaintiffs cannot seek redress from the Department of Education, which administers Federal financial assistance to students, since the DOE only authorizes suits against the Secretary of Education, not against individual schools. See 20 U.S.C. § 1082(a)(2).
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60. The undue influence exerted by the legal academy over the ABA has led the
National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, which advises the
Department of Education on accreditation issues, to question the ABA’s overall competency as
an accrediting body. Specifically, the committee found that the ABA had failed to comply with
17 regulations, including, among others, failing “to set a standard for job placement by its
member institutions.” See http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2011/06/aba-is.html. One of
the members on the committee, Arthur Keiser, publicly accused the ABA of “not getting it,”
noting that an accrediting agency would never accredit an institution with 17 outstanding issues.
Id; see also Ex. 11 at p.1 (quoting June 11, 2011 article from The Chronicle of Higher
Education which describes the committee’s members as expressing “frustration that they could
not take stronger actions or at least state their concerns [regarding the ABA’s lackluster
accreditation process] with stronger language.”)
CLASS ACTION ALLEGATIONS
61. This action is brought and may properly be maintained as a class action pursuant
to Rule 23(b)(2) and (b)(3) of the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure. Plaintiffs bring this action,
on behalf of themselves and all other similarly situated, as representative members of the
following proposed class (the “Class”):
All persons who are either presently enrolled or graduated from the Widener University
School of Law within the statutory period for the six-year period prior to the date this
Complaint is filed through the date that this Class is certified.
62. Excluded from the Class are Defendants, WLS, its employees, officers and
directors, the Judge(s) assigned to this case, and the attorneys of record in this case. Plaintiffs
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reserve the right to amend the Class definition if discovery and further investigation reveal that
the Class should be expanded or otherwise modified.
63. For the foregoing reasons, this action fulfills the standards and requirements as
outlined in Rule 23(b)(2) and (b)(3) of the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure:
A. The Parties are Numerous and Easily Ascertainable
64. The proposed Class is so numerous that it is manifestly impracticable to bring
them all before the court. Though the exact number and identities of the Class members is
unknown at this time, they likely number hundreds of people, because around 500 students
graduate from WLS each year. The number and identities of the Class members may be
ascertained from Defendants’ records and files, and may easily be notified about the pendency of
this action through individually mailed notice and/or notice by publication.
B. Common Questions of Law and Facts Predominate
65. This action presents questions of law and facts common to the Class, including,
but not limited to, the following:
a. Whether Defendants represented that approximately 90-95 percent of their
graduates secure employment within nine months of graduation;
b. Whether Defendants represented salary information without disclosing
the percentage of students reporting salary information;
c. Whether Defendants engaged in deceptive, misleading, unfair, fraudulent
and/or otherwise unlawful practices through its non-disclosure of material facts and
affirmative misleading statements regarding post-graduate employment data and salary
information;
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d. Whether Defendants’ conduct violated Delaware’s Deceptive Trade
Practices Act as alleged herein;
e. Whether Plaintiffs and Class members are entitled to recover actual
damages as a result of the actions alleged herein;
f. Whether Plaintiffs and members of the Class are entitled to recover
restitution of tuition monies remitted to Defendants as a result of the actions alleged herein;
g. Whether Plaintiffs and Class members of the Class are entitled to recover
punitive damages as a result of the actions alleged herein;
h. Whether Plaintiff and Class members are entitled to an award of
reasonable attorneys’ fees, pre-judgment interest and costs of this suit;
i. Whether Defendants should be forced to retain independent, non-related
third-parties to audit and verify their post-graduate employment data and salary information;
j. Whether Defendants should be enjoined from continuing to make false
and misleading representations and omissions regarding their post-graduate employment data
and salary information; and
k. Whether Plaintiffs and Class members paid inflated tuition based on
material misleading statements, representations and omissions.
C. Plaintiffs’ Claims Are Typical of the Class
66. Plaintiffs’ claims are typical of the claims and of the members of the Class
because they have all been damaged in the same manner and way as a result of Defendants’
failure to disclose material facts and policies of misrepresentation and omissions. Accordingly,
the interests of the representative Plaintiffs are co-extensive with the interests of each Class
member, and all have a common right of recovery based upon the same facts.
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D. The Class Representatives Can Adequately Represent the Class
67. Plaintiffs will fairly and adequately represent and protect the interests of the
Class, in that they have no interests that are antagonistic to or that irreconcilably conflict with
those of other Class members, Plaintiffs have retained counsel competent and experienced in the
prosecution of class action litigation, including substantial experience in the types of claims
alleged herein.
E. A Class Action Is Superior To All Other Available Methods For The Fair And Efficient Adjudication Of Plaintiffs’ and Class Members’ Claims 68. A class action is superior to all other available methods for the fair and efficient
adjudication of Plaintiffs’ and Class Members’ claims. A class action is superior to preserve
Class Members’ claims who would otherwise forego litigation given the burden and expense of
individual prosecution of their claims, in comparison to the amount of damages suffered by each
individual Class Member. Individualized litigation would burden the courts, would increase the
delay and expense to all parties and the Court, and would produce the potential for inconsistent
or contradictory judgments and would establish incompatible standards of conduct for
Defendants. The individual prosecution of separate actions would create a risk of adjudications
which may be dispositive of the interests of other Class Members not parties to the adjudications,
or substantially impair or impede their ability to protect their interests. Furthermore, final
injunctive relief is appropriate against Defendants with respect to members of a Class as a whole,
as opposed to individual injunctions. Certification of a class action to resolve these disputes will
reduce the possibility of repetitious litigation involving hundreds of thousands of Class members,
and allow supervision by a single court.
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69. WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs, on behalf of themselves and the Class, pray for an
order certifying the Class and appointing Plaintiffs and their counsel of record to represent the
Class.
FIRST CAUSE OF ACTION
(Against All Defendants for Violations of Delaware’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act,
6 Del. C. §§2531-36 et seq)
70. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference each and every allegation set forth above as if
fully stated herein.
71. Defendants’ actions constitute unlawful, unfair, deceptive and fraudulent practices
as defined by Delaware’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act, 6 Del. C. §§2531-36 et seq.
72. As part of its fraudulent marketing practices and recruitment program, WLS
engaged in a pattern and practice of knowingly and intentionally making numerous false
representations and omissions of material facts, with the intent to deceive and fraudulently
induce reliance by Plaintiffs and the members of the Class. These false representations and
omissions were uniform and identical in nature, and include, without limitation, the following:
a. Stating false placement rates during the recruitment and retention process,
including that approximately 90-95 percent of WLS graduates secured
employment within nine months of graduation;
b. Manipulating post-graduate employment data, so as to give the appearance that
the overwhelming majority of recent graduates secure full-time, permanent
employment for which a JD degree is required or preferred;
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c. Disseminating false post-graduate employment data and salary information to
various third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US
News;
d. Making deceptive and misleading statements, representations and omissions
concerning WLS’s reputation with potential employers;;
e. Making deceptive and misleading statements, representations and omissions
concerning the value of a WLS degree;
f. Making deceptive and misleading statements, representations and omissions
concerning the pace at which recent graduates can obtain gainful employment in
their chosen field; and
g. Causing students to pay inflated tuition based on materially misleading
statements, representations and omissions, including, specifically that
approximately 90-95 percent of WLS graduates secure gainful employment.
73. In general, Plaintiffs and members of the Class enrolled at WLS for the purpose
of securing upon graduation full-time, permanent employment for which a JD degree is required
or preferred. Defendants’ acts, practices and omissions, therefore, were material to Plaintiffs’
decision to enroll and attend WLS, and further proximately caused Plaintiffs and other members
of the Class to pay inflated tuition.
74. The Defendants’ above-alleged actions constitute unfair business practices since
the actions were deceptive, immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous, substantially injurious,
and operate to the competitive disadvantage of other law schools. They are also likely to deceive
the public. Moreover, the injury to the Plaintiffs was substantial and outweighs the utility of the
Defendants’ practices.
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75. The unfair and deceptive trade acts and practices have directly, foreseeably and
proximately caused damage to Plaintiffs and other members of the Class.
76. The Defendants’ practices, in addition, are unfair and deceptive because they have
caused Plaintiffs and the Class substantial harm, which is not outweighed by any countervailing
benefits to consumers or competition, and is not an injury consumers themselves could have
reasonably avoided.
77. The Defendants’ acts and practices have misled and deceived the general public in
the past, and will continue to mislead and deceive the general public into the future, by, among
other things, causing them to apply to and enroll at WLS under false pretenses.
78. Plaintiffs are entitled to preliminary and permanent injunctive relief ordering the
Defendants to immediately cease these unfair business practices, as well as disgorgement and
restitution to Plaintiffs of all revenue associated with their unfair practices, or such revenues as
the Court may find equitable and just.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs, on behalf of themselves and members of the Class, pray for
relief and judgment against Defendants WLS and Does 1 though 20 as follows:
1. For preliminary and injunctive relief enjoining Defendants, their agents, servants,
employees and all persons acting in concert with them from continuing to engage in
their unlawful recruitment program and manipulation of post-graduate employment
data and salary information, and all other unfair, unlawful and /or fraudulent business
practices alleged above and that may yet be discovered in the prosecution of this
action;
2. For certification of the Class;
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3. For the partial restitution and disgorgement of tuition monies remitted to WLS,
totaling $75 million, which is the difference between the inflated tuition paid by Class
members based on the material misrepresentations that approximately 90-95 percent
of graduates are employed within nine months of graduation and the true value of a
WLS degree;
4. For damages;
5. For punitive damages;
6. For an accounting by Defendants for any and all profits derived by them from the
herein-alleged unlawful, unfair, and/or fraudulent conduct and/or business practices;
7. For injunctive relief ordering that WLS retains unrelated, independent third-parties to
audit and verify post-graduate employment data and salary information;
8. For attorneys’ fees and expenses pursuant to all applicable laws;;
9. For prejudgment interest; and
10. For such other and further relief as the Court may deem just and proper.
DATED: February 1, 2012 Respectfully Submitted,
STONE & MAGNANINI LLP By: /s/ David S. Stone David S. Stone
Eric H. Jaso Jason C. Spiro Stone & Magnanini LLP 150 JFK Parkway, Short Hills, NJ 07078 Phone (973) 218-1111 Facsimile (973) 218-1106
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32
David Anziska The Law Offices of David Anziska 305 Broadway, 9th Fl. New York, NY 10007 Phone (212) 822-1496
Facsimile (212) 822-1437 Jesse Strauss Strauss Law, PLLC
305 Broadway, 9th Fl. New York, NY 10007 Phone (212) 822-1496
Facsimile (212) 822-1437
Counsel for Plaintiffs, individually and for all others similarly situated
DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL
Plaintiffs hereby demand a jury trial on all causes of action so triable.
DATED: February 1, 2012 Respectfully Submitted,
STONE MAGNANINI LLP By: /s/ David S. Stone David S. Stone
Eric H. Jaso Jason C. Spiro Stone & Magnanini LLP 150 JFK Parkway, Short Hills, NJ 07078 Phone (973) 218-1111 Facsimile (973) 218-1106 David Anziska The Law Offices of David Anziska 305 Broadway, 9th Fl. New York, NY 10007 Phone (212) 822-1496
Facsimile (212) 822-1437
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Jesse Strauss Strauss Law PLLC
305 Broadway, 9th Fl. New York, NY 10007 Phone (212) 822-1496
Facsimile (212) 822-1437
Counsel for Plaintiffs, individually and for all others similarly situated
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EXHIBIT C MACDONALD, JR. V. THOMAS M. COOLEY LAW
SCHOOL AMENDED COMPLAINT
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David Anziska Law Offices of David Anziska 305 Broadway, 9th Fl. New York, NY 10007 Phone (212) 822-1496 Facsimile (212) 822-1437
Steven Hyder (P69875) The Hyder Law Firm, P.C. PO Box 2242 Monroe, MI 48161 hyders@hyderlawfirm.com Phone (734) 757-4586
Jesse Strauss (admitted NY - 4182002) Strauss Law PLLC 305 Broadway, 9th Fl. New York, NY 10007 Phone (212) 822-1496 Facsimile (212) 822-1437 Counsel for Plaintiffs, individually and for all others similarly situated
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
JOHN T. MACDONALD JR., CHELSEA : Case No. 11-cv-00831 A. PEJIC, SHAWN HAFF, : Hon. Gordon J. Quist STEVEN BARON, DIMPLE KUMAR, : CARRIE KALBFLEISCH, : ANDERS CHRISTENSEN, : DANNY WAKEFIELD, DAN GUINN, : BENJAMIN FORSGREN, : SHANE HOBBS, and KEVIN PRINCE, : on behalf of themselves and all : others similarly situated, : : AMENDED CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT :
Plaintiffs, : : v. : :
THOMAS M. COOLEY LAW SCHOOL, : and DOES 1-20, :
Defendants. : :
: JURY TRIAL DEMANDED
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………...1
JURISDICTION AND VENVUE………………………………………………………………...7
PARTIES………………………………………………………………………………………….8
I. Plaintiffs…………………………………………………………………………..8
II. Defendants……………………………………………………………………….22
FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS……………………………………………………………………23
I. Background Information…………………………………………………………23
A. A Veritable “JD Factory”………………………………………………...23
B. Becoming “America’s Largest Law School” While Maintaining an 80 Percent Placement Rate……………………………...24
C. History of Unfounded Claims……………………………………………25
II. Underlying Fraud Allegations……………………………………………………26
A. Statements Constituting Fraud…………………………………………...26
B. Disseminating False Information to Third Parties……………………….30
III. Manipulating Employment Data…………………………………………………32
A. Proof of Fraud……………………………………………………………32
B. Intent to Defraud…………………………………………………………37
IV. Manipulating Salary Information………………………………………………...40
V. Challenging the Status Quo……………………………………………………...42
VI. Role of the ABA…………………………………………………………………45
CLASS ACTION ALLEGATIONS……………………………………………………………..50
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FIRST CAUSE OF ACTION……………………………………………………………………53
SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION………………………………………………………………..56
THIRD CAUSE OF ACTION…………………………………………………………………..60
PRAYER FOR RELIEF…………………………………………………………………………63
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Plaintiffs, acting for themselves and for all persons who currently attend or graduated
from the Thomas M. Cooley Law School during the relevant time period (collectively
“Plaintiffs”), allege as follows. Plaintiffs’ allegations are based on the investigation of counsel,
including but not limited to reviews of advertising and marketing material, various publicly
available information and interviews of former students, and are thus made on information and
belief, except as to individual actions of Plaintiffs, as to which Plaintiffs have personal
knowledge.
PRELIMINARY STATEME NT
“Sunlight is the Best Disinfectant” – Justice Louis Brandeis
1. This action seeks to remedy a systemic, ongoing fraud that is ubiquitous in the
legal education industry and threatens to leave a generation of law students in dire financial
straits. Essentially, Plaintiffs want to bring an element of “sunlight” or transparency to the way
law schools report post-graduate employment data and salary information, by requiring that they
make critical, material disclosures that will give both prospective and current students a more
accurate picture of their post-graduate financial situation, as opposed to the status quo where law
schools are incentivized to engage in all sorts of legerdemain when tabulating employment
statistics.
2. Churning out nearly 1,000 newly-minted JD graduates each year, the Thomas M.
Cooley School of Law (“Thomas Cooley,” “TCLS,” or “Defendants”) is by far the largest law
school in the country with approximately 4,000 students spread out across four campuses, the
overwhelming majority of whom -- 82 percent -- are enrolled on a part-time basis. Indeed,
Thomas Cooley’s enormous class size and diverse student body is a point of pride for the school,
which expressly markets itself as being “committed to providing a legal education to people from
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all walks of life.” To that end, Thomas Cooley in its Mission Statement represents that its
underlying purpose is to “prepare its graduates for entry into the legal profession through an
integrated program with practical legal scholarship as its guiding principle and focus,” by
imbuing them with the requisite skills and knowledge “needed to be a success in the law and a
valuable member of society.”
3. Unfortunately, in reality, far from preparing its many, many students for entry
into the legal profession and imbuing them with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in
law, the school consigns most of them to years of indentured servitude, saddling them with tens
of thousands of dollars in crushing, non-dischargeable debt that will take literally decades to pay
off. The school has done this while blatantly misrepresenting and manipulating its employment
statistics to prospective students, employing the type of “Enron-style” accounting techniques that
would leave most for-profit companies facing the long barrel of a government investigation and
the prospect of paying a substantial civil fine. These deceptions are perpetuated so as to prevent
prospective students from realizing the obvious -- that attending Thomas Cooley and forking
over nearly $100,000 in tuition payments is a terrible investment which makes little economic
sense and, most likely, will never pay off.
4. Specifically, Thomas Cooley, through both print and internet marketing materials
it produced and disseminated, makes two uniform, written misrepresentations:
a. First, from August 11, 2005 to the present (“Class Period”), TCLS
reported with “Madoff”-like consistency that, depending on the year, between 76 and 82 percent
of its graduates secured employment within nine months of graduation. The context of these
representations make it appear to the reasonable consumer, such as Plaintiffs, that the jobs
reported are full-time, permanent positions for which a law degree is required or preferred.
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These numbers are false because Thomas Cooley’s reported employment numbers include any
type of employment, including jobs that have absolutely nothing to do with the legal industry, do
not require a JD degree or are temporary or part-time in nature. If TCLS was to disclose the
number of graduates who have secured full-time, permanent positions for which a JD degree is
required or preferred, the numbers would drop dramatically, and could be well below 25
percent, if not even lower.
b. Second, during the Class Period, TCLS grossly inflated its graduates’
reported mean salaries, by calculating them based on a small, deliberately selected subset of
graduates who submit their salary information. If the Defendants were to disclose salary data
based on a broad, statistically meaningful representation of its graduates, by including more
graduates who have failed to secure full-time, permanent employment, the reported mean salaries
would decline precipitously.
5. Thomas Cooley’s representations are demonstrably false for the following
reasons:
a. Thomas Cooley’s reported placement rates and salary information have
remained eerily steady throughout the past decade, even though the total number of graduates
from 2004 to 2009 has increased from 404 to 958 students -- an astounding 137 percent. Indeed,
TCLS’s own internal documents reveal that school administrators during this period of
unparalleled growth were concerned that larger classes would diminish their graduates’ job
prospects, but no meaningful change in the employment statistics materialized, and TCLS’s
placement rate barely budged from 82 to 78 percent between those years.
b. Thomas Cooley’s reported placement rates and salary information have
barely dipped since the onslaught of the “Great Recession,” as the placement rates for the Class
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of 2009 was an impressive 78 percent and 76 percent for the Class of 2010. Currently, the legal
employment market is highly oversaturated, with law schools churning out 43,000 JD degrees
each year, even though roughly half as many jobs are available (26,000). Yet, with legal jobs
becoming increasingly scarce, Thomas Cooley, instead of telling the sobering truth to
prospective and current students, continues to make the fantastical claim that the overwhelming
majority of its graduates are gainfully employed.
c. As set forth in painstaking detail below, the employment and salary data
reported by Thomas Cooley are at odds with employment statistics reported by NALP, meaning
that for TCLS’s statistics to be accurate it would likely need to be placing students well above
the 40 percent of law school graduates nationally who secure full-time, permanent legal
employment, despite its extremely lenient admission standards and being ranked in the bottom
tier by every major law school rankings.
6. Unfortunately, Thomas Cooley’s false and fraudulent representations and
omissions are endemic in the law school industry, as nearly every school to a certain degree
blatantly manipulates their employment data to make themselves more attractive to prospective
students. It is a dirty industry secret that law schools employ a variety of deceptive practices
and accounting legerdemain to “pretty up” or “cook” the job numbers, including, among other
things, hiring recent unemployed graduates as “research assistants” or providing them with
“public interest” stipends so as to classify them as employed, excluding graduates who do not
supply employment information from employment surveys, refusing to categorize unemployed
graduates who are not “actively” seeking employment as unemployed and classifying graduates
who have only secured temporary, part-time employment as being “fully” employed.
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7. Compounding problems, there is no place where prospective students can find
Thomas Cooley’s real employment numbers. Indeed, the school provides the same dubious
statistics to the U.S. News & World Report (“US News”) and the American Bar Association
(“ABA”), the two primary sources of information for law school employment data. Like
Thomas Cooley, these sources count as “employed” those who have secured employment in any
capacity in any kind of job, no matter how unrelated to the legal field.
8. By playing fast and loose with its employment data, Thomas Cooley creates an
impression of bountiful employment opportunity that in reality does not exist, and bamboozles
Plaintiffs into taking on substantial debt to finance their TCLS education. According to US
News, TCLS students graduate on average with a whopping $105,798 in loans, with over 90
percent of them assuming debt to attend the school. The current annual tuition for full-time
students at Thomas Cooley is $36,750, excluding thousands of dollars in living expenses, making
it one of the more expensive law schools in the country, despite the fact that it is ranked in the
fourth or bottom tier by the U.S. News in their annual law school rankings.
9. To a remarkable degree, Thomas Cooley and the law school industry in general
have been astonishingly successful in deceiving prospective students about the value of a law
degree in an effort to maintain and increase both enrollment and tuition. Last year, a record
51,426 first-year students enrolled in law schools, up by over 60 percent from 1971, while
Thomas Cooley has enrolled over 1,500 first-year students in each of the past six years.
Additionally, tuition at Thomas Cooley -- much like the rest of the law school industry -- has
risen exponentially over the past two decades, far exceeding both inflation and any increase in
attorneys’ starting salaries, and since 2006 alone has risen by an incredible $12,000 or nearly 50
percent.
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10. The dramatic increase in law school tuition has dovetailed with the dramatic
increase in faculty compensation, a fact which is especially true at Thomas Cooley where the
faculty have handsomely profited at their students’ expense. For example, for the fiscal year
2008, Thomas Cooley Dean, Don LeDuc, earned a staggering $548,047 in total compensation
and additional $523,213 for the fiscal year 2009, making him one of the highest paid law school
deans in the country, while retired Dean and school founder, Thomas Brennan, earned nearly
$370,000 in total compensation both during 2008 and 2009.
11. After much public hand-wringing and increased scrutiny, the legal profession has
finally begun to recognize the systemic fraud the law school industry has been perpetuating.
Senator Barbara Boxer of California and Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa have each sent
multiple letters to the President of the ABA, taking the organization to task for failing to properly
police the law school industry. Additionally, a coalition of 55 law school student body
presidents have sent to Congress proposed legislation that would, among other things, create new
reporting standards for employment data, require law schools to submit annual employment
reports to the Department of Education (“DOE”), and empower the DOE to audit these reports.
The problem has grown so acute that even both the current and past presidents of the California
Bar Association in much publicized op-ed pieces each separately implored law school deans to
adopt more rigorous reporting standards by disclosing the type of detailed employment and
salary information that would allow students to get a more realistic picture of their post-graduate
financial situation.
12. These entreaties had fallen mostly on deaf ears until now, as the ABA’s
committee on accrediting law schools has just recently enacted guidelines that would expressly
require law schools to report their true post-graduate employment rate, by disclosing the type of
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information Plaintiffs are seeking here: the exact percentage of graduates who have obtained
permanent, full-time legal employment. Specifically, law schools will be required to break down
their employment data so as to indicate whether a position is full-time or part-time, permanent or
temporary, funded by the law school or an affiliated university, and whether bar passage or a JD
degree is required or preferred. Unfortunately, these changes come too late for Plaintiffs since
they have already taken on tens of thousands of dollars in non-dischargeable debt based on
Thomas Cooley’s deceptive and misleading statements. Moreover, there is no means by which
Plaintiffs can obtain relief from the ABA because the organization specifically disallows disputes
between individuals and approved law schools and the Federal Department of Education has no
mechanism in place to entertain such concerns, nor are such statutorily authorized.
13. Accordingly, Plaintiffs now seek to vindicate their interests through the court
system and hold Thomas Cooley accountable for its deceptive and misleading practices. This
action asserts claims: a) under Michigan’s Consumer Protection Act, MCLS §445.901, et seq.
(the “MCPA”);; b) for Fraud; and c) for Negligent Misrepresentation. Plaintiffs seek damages
and equitable relief on behalf of the class, which includes but is not limited to the following:
refunding and reimbursing current and former students for a portion of the tuition paid to
Thomas Cooley; an order enjoining Thomas Cooley from continuing to market its false and
inaccurate employment data and salary information; an order requiring that TCLS retains a third
party to independently audit all employment and salary data; costs and expenses, including
attorneys’ and experts’ fees;; and any additional relief that this Court determines to be necessary
or appropriate to provide complete relief to Plaintiffs and the class.
JURISDICTION AND VENUE
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13. This Court has original jurisdiction over this action under the Class Action
Fairness Act of 2005, 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2)(“CAFA”), as to the named Plaintiffs and every
member of the Class, because the proposed Class contains more than 100 members, the
aggregate amount of controversy exceeds $5 million, less than two-thirds of the members reside
in Michigan, and members reside across the U.S. and are therefore diverse from the Defendants.
14. The Court has personal jurisdiction in this action by virtue of the fact that
Defendants are based and headquartered in Michigan and have conducted business in Michigan.
15. Venue is proper in this District pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1391(b) inasmuch as the
unlawful practices are alleged to have been committed in this District, Defendants regularly
conduct business in this District, including operating its flagship Lansing campus, and at least
some of the Plaintiffs reside in this District.
PARTIES
I. Plaintiffs
16. John T. MacDonald Jr. is a practicing attorney in Lansing, Michigan who is
currently a member in good standing of the Michigan Bar. Prior to attending law school, Mr.
MacDonald was a commissioned Naval Officer who served for four years with distinction before
receiving an honorable discharge. Mr. MacDonald graduated from Thomas Cooley’s Lansing
campus in 2010, and in total paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees to the school
while incurring tens of thousands of dollars more in debt. Mr. MacDonald did not enroll in
Thomas Cooley with the intention of using his JD degree for an ongoing business or to start a
non-legal business, but rather intended to use his JD degree to prospectively better himself and
his personal circumstances through the attainment of full-time employment in the legal sector. In
applying and deciding to remain enrolled at Thomas Cooley, Mr. MacDonald relied on salary
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data and employment information posted on TCLS’s website, marketing material and/or
disseminated to third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US News,
and specifically relied on TCLS’s representations that, depending on the year, approximately 80
percent of its graduates were employed within nine months of graduation and earned a median
salary of roughly $50,000. Indeed, prior to Mr. McDonald’s enrolling in Thomas Cooley, the
school posted on its website an employment report asserting that 82 percent of 2005 graduates
secured employment within nine of graduation, and while Mr. McDonald was enrolled in TCLS
the school posted on its website an employment report asserting that 82 percent of 2006
graduates secured employment within nine months of graduation. Furthermore, Mr. MacDonald
when applying and deciding to remain enrolled in Thomas Cooley was unaware that the school’s
reported placement rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for
which a JD was not required or preferred -- employment Mr. MacDonald would have been
eligible for even without obtaining a JD degree and paying TCLS’s tuition. Had Mr. MacDonald
been aware that Thomas Cooley’s reported placement rates included temporary and part-time
employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or preferred, he would have
elected to either pay less to TCLS or perhaps not attend the school at all. Following his
graduation from law school, Mr. MacDonald could not find full-time, permanent legal
employment and was forced to open up his own law firm which he currently still operates.
17. Chelsea A. Pejic is a practicing attorney in Chicago, Illinois who is currently a
member in good standing of the Illinois Bar. Ms. Pejic graduated from Thomas Cooley’s
Lansing campus in 2006, and in total paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees to the
school while incurring tens of thousands of dollars more in debt. Ms. Pejic did not enroll in
Thomas Cooley with the intention of using her JD degree for an ongoing business or to start a
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non-legal business, but rather intended to use her JD degree to prospectively better herself and
her personal circumstances through the attainment of full-time employment in the legal sector.
In applying and deciding to remain enrolled at Thomas Cooley, Ms. Pejic relied on salary data
and employment information posted on TCLS’s website, marketing material and/or disseminated
to third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US News, and
specifically relied on TCLS’s representations that, depending on the year, approximately 80
percent of its graduates were employed within nine months of graduation and earned a median
salary of roughly $50,000. Indeed, prior to Ms. Pejic’s enrolling in Thomas Cooley, the school
posted on its website employment reports asserting that 79 percent of 2002 graduates secured
employment within nine of graduation, and while Ms. Pejic was enrolled in TCLS the school
posted on its website employment reports asserting that 77 percent of 2003 graduates and 79
percent of 2004 graduates secured employment within nine months of graduation. Furthermore,
Ms. Pejic when applying and deciding to remain enrolled in Thomas Cooley was unaware that
the school’s reported placement rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or
employment for which a JD was not required or preferred -- employment Ms. Pejic would have
been eligible for even without obtaining a JD degree and paying TCLS’s tuition. Had Ms. Pejic
been aware that Thomas Cooley’s reported placement rates included temporary and part-time
employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or preferred, she would have
elected to either pay less to TCLS or perhaps not attend the school at all. Following her
graduation from law school, Ms. Pejic, despite circulating hundreds of resumes, could not obtain
gainful legal employment and was forced to endure a long bout of unemployment. She has also
worked as a voluntary staff attorney and a temporary contract attorney, while also operating for a
brief period of time her own firm.
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18. Shawn Haff is a practicing attorney in Grand Rapids, Michigan who is currently a
member in good standing of the Michigan Bar. Mr. Haff graduated from Thomas Cooley’s
Grand Rapids campus in 2010, and in total paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees to
the school while incurring tens of thousands of dollars more in debt. Mr. Haff did not enroll in
Thomas Cooley with the intention of using his JD degree for an ongoing business or to start a
non-legal business, but rather intended to use his JD degree to prospectively better himself and
his personal circumstances through the attainment of full-time employment in the legal sector. In
applying and deciding to remain enrolled at Thomas Cooley, Mr. Haff relied on salary data and
employment information posted on TCLS’s website, marketing material and/or disseminated to
third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US News, and specifically
relied on TCLS’s representations that, depending on the year, approximately 80 percent of its
graduates were employed within nine months of graduation and earned a median salary of
roughly $50,000. Indeed, prior to Mr. Haff’s enrolling in Thomas Cooley, the school posted on
its website an employment report asserting that 82 percent of 2005 graduates secured
employment within nine of graduation, and while Mr. Haff was enrolled in TCLS the school
posted on its website an employment report asserting that 82 percent of 2006 graduates secured
employment within nine months of graduation. Furthermore, Mr. Haff when applying and
deciding to remain enrolled in Thomas Cooley was unaware that the school’s reported placement
rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for which a JD was not
required or preferred -- employment Mr. Haff would have been eligible for even without
obtaining a JD degree and paying TCLS’s tuition. Had Mr. Haff been aware that Thomas
Cooley’s reported placement rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or
employment for which a JD was not required or preferred, he would have elected to either pay
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less to TCLS or perhaps not attend the school at all. Following his graduation from law school,
Mr. Haff could not find full-time, permanent legal employment and was forced to take
temporary, contract assignments reviewing documents in order to make ends meet. Currently, he
owns and operates his own law firm.
19. Steven Baron currently resides in Los Angeles, California. He graduated from
Thomas Cooley’s Lansing campus in 2008, and in total paid tens of thousands of dollars in
tuition and fees to the school while incurring tens of thousands of dollars more in debt. Mr.
Baron did not enroll in Thomas Cooley with the intention of using his JD degree for an ongoing
business or to start a non-legal business, but rather intended to use his JD degree to prospectively
better himself and his personal circumstances through the attainment of full-time employment in
the legal sector. In applying and deciding to remain enrolled at Thomas Cooley, Mr. Baron
relied on salary data and employment information posted on TCLS’s website, marketing material
and/or disseminated to third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US
News, and specifically relied on TCLS’s representations that, depending on the year,
approximately 80 percent of its graduates were employed within nine months of graduation and
earned a median salary of roughly $50,000. Indeed, prior to Mr. Baron’s enrolling in Thomas
Cooley, the school posted on its website employment reports asserting that 77 percent of 2003
graduates and 79 percent of 2004 graduates secured employment within nine of graduation, and
while Mr. Baron was enrolled in TCLS the school posted on its website employment reports
asserting that 82 percent of 2005 and 2006 graduates secured employment within nine months of
graduation. Furthermore, Mr. Baron when applying and deciding to remain enrolled in Thomas
Cooley was unaware that the school’s reported placement rates included temporary and part-time
employment, and/or employment for which a JD was not required or preferred -- employment
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Mr. Baron would have been eligible for even without obtaining a JD degree and paying TCLS’s
tuition. Had Mr. Baron been aware that Thomas Cooley’s reported placement rates included
temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or
preferred, he would have elected to either pay less to TCLS or perhaps not attend the school at
all. Following his graduation from law school, Mr. Baron, despite circulating hundreds of
resumes, has been unable to obtain any kind of sustained employment and is currently
unemployed.
20. Dimple Kumar is a practicing attorney in New York who is currently a member
in good standing of the New York Bar. Mr. Kumar graduated from Thomas Cooley’s Lansing
campus in January 2009, and in total paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees to the
school while incurring tens of thousands of dollars more in debt. Mr. Kumar did not enroll in
Thomas Cooley with the intention of using his JD degree for an ongoing business or to start a
non-legal business, but rather intended to use his JD degree to prospectively better himself and
his personal circumstances through the attainment of full-time employment in the legal sector. In
applying and deciding to remain enrolled at Thomas Cooley, Mr. Kumar relied on salary data
and employment information posted on TCLS’s website, marketing material and/or disseminated
to third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US News, and
specifically relied on TCLS’s representations that, depending on the year, approximately 80
percent of its graduates were employed within nine months of graduation and earned a median
salary of roughly $50,000. Indeed, prior to Mr. Kumar’s enrolling in Thomas Cooley, the school
posted on its website employment reports asserting that 77 percent of 2003 graduates and 79
percent of 2004 graduates secured employment within nine of graduation, and while Mr. Kumar
was enrolled in TCLS the school posted on its website employment reports asserting that 82
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percent of 2005 and 2006 graduates secured employment within nine months of graduation.
Furthermore, Mr. Kumar when applying and deciding to remain enrolled in Thomas Cooley was
unaware that the school’s reported placement rates included temporary and part-time
employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or preferred -- employment
Mr. Kumar would have been eligible for even without obtaining a JD degree and paying TCLS’s
tuition. Had Mr. Kumar been aware that Thomas Cooley’s reported placement rates included
temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or
preferred, he would have elected to either pay less to TCLS or perhaps not attend the school at
all. Following his graduation from law school, Mr. Kumar could not find full-time, permanent
legal employment for over nine months and was forced to take temporary, contract assignments
reviewing documents in order to make ends meet, until he found full-time employment
practicing landlord-tenant law. Currently, he owns and operates his own law firm.
21. Carrie Kalbfleisch is a practicing attorney in Shelbyville, Kentucky who is
currently a member in good standing of the Kentucky Bar. Ms. Kalbfleisch graduated from
Thomas Cooley’s Lansing campus in 2010, and in total paid tens of thousands of dollars in
tuition and fees to the school while incurring tens of thousands of dollars more in debt. Ms.
Kalbfleisch did not enroll in Thomas Cooley with the intention of using her JD degree for an
ongoing business or to start a non-legal business, but rather intended to use her JD degree to
prospectively better herself and her personal circumstances through the attainment of full-time
employment in the legal sector. In applying and deciding to remain enrolled at Thomas Cooley,
Ms. Kalbfleisch relied on salary data and employment information posted on TCLS’s website,
marketing material and/or disseminated to third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such
as the ABA and US News, and specifically relied on TCLS’s representations that, depending on
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the year, approximately 80 percent of its graduates were employed within nine months of
graduation and earned a median salary of roughly $50,000. Indeed, prior to Ms. Kalbfleisch’s
enrolling in Thomas Cooley, the school posted on its website an employment report asserting
that 82 percent of 2005 graduates secured employment within nine of graduation, and while Ms.
Kalbfleisch was enrolled in TCLS the school posted on its website an employment report
asserting that 82 percent of 2006 graduates secured employment within nine months of
graduation. Furthermore, Ms. Kalbfleisch when applying and deciding to remain enrolled in
Thomas Cooley was unaware that the school’s reported placement rates included temporary and
part-time employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or preferred --
employment Ms. Kalbfleisch would have been eligible for even without obtaining a JD degree
and paying TCLS’s tuition. Had Ms. Kalbfleisch been aware that Thomas Cooley’s reported
placement rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for which a
JD was not required or preferred, she would have elected to either pay less to TCLS or perhaps
not attend the school at all. Following her graduation from law school, Ms. Kalbfleisch started
her own law firm.
22. Dan Guinn is a practicing attorney in Ohio who is currently a member in good
standing of the Ohio Bar. Prior to attending both college and law school, Mr. Guinn served for
over eight years in the United States Navy. Mr. Guinn graduated from Thomas Cooley’s
Lansing campus in 2009, and in total paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees to the
school while incurring tens of thousands of dollars more in debt. Mr. Guinn did not enroll in
Thomas Cooley with the intention of using his JD degree for an ongoing business or to start a
non-legal business, but rather intended to use his JD degree to prospectively better himself and
his personal circumstances through the attainment of full-time employment in the legal sector. In
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applying and deciding to remain enrolled at Thomas Cooley, Mr. Guinn relied on salary data and
employment information posted on TCLS’s website, marketing material and/or disseminated to
third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US News, and specifically
relied on TCLS’s representations that, depending on the year, approximately 80 percent of its
graduates were employed within nine months of graduation and earned a median salary of
roughly $50,000. Indeed, prior to Mr. Guinn’s enrolling in Thomas Cooley, the school posted on
its website an employment report asserting that 82 percent of 2005 graduates secured
employment within nine of graduation, and while Mr. Guinn was enrolled in TCLS the school
posted on its website an employment report asserting that 82 percent of 2006 graduates secured
employment within nine months of graduation. Furthermore, Mr. Guinn when applying and
deciding to remain enrolled in Thomas Cooley was unaware that the school’s reported placement
rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for which a JD was not
required or preferred -- employment Mr. Guinn would have been eligible for even without
obtaining a JD degree and paying TCLS’s tuition. Had Mr. Guinn been aware that Thomas
Cooley’s reported placement rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or
employment for which a JD was not required or preferred, he would have elected to either pay
less to TCLS or perhaps not attend the school at all. Following his graduation from law school,
Mr. Guinn could not find full-time, permanent legal employment and was forced to take
temporary, contract assignments reviewing documents in order to make ends meet. Currently, he
owns and operates his own law firm.
23. Anders Christensen is a practicing attorney in Utah who is currently a member in
good standing of the Utah Bar. Mr. Christenson graduated from Thomas Cooley’s Lansing
campus in 2010, and in total paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees to the school
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while incurring tens of thousands of dollars more in debt. Mr. Christensen did not enroll in
Thomas Cooley with the intention of using his JD degree for an ongoing business or start a non-
legal business, but rather intended to use his JD degree to prospectively better himself and his
personal circumstances through the attainment of full-time employment in the legal sector. In
applying and deciding to remain enrolled at Thomas Cooley, Mr. Christensen relied on salary
data and employment information posted on TCLS’s website, marketing material and/or
disseminated to third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US News,
and specifically relied on TCLS’s representations that, depending on the year, approximately 80
percent of its graduates were employed within nine months of graduation and earned a median
salary of roughly $50,000. Indeed, prior to Mr. Christensen’s enrolling in Thomas Cooley, the
school posted on its website an employment report asserting that 82 percent of 2005 graduates
secured employment within nine of graduation, and while Mr. Christensen was enrolled in TCLS
the school posted on its website an employment report asserting that 82 percent of 2006
graduates secured employment within nine months of graduation. Furthermore, Mr. Christensen
when applying and deciding to remain enrolled in Thomas Cooley was unaware that the school’s
reported placement rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for
which a JD was not required or preferred -- employment Mr. Christensen would have been
eligible for even without obtaining a JD degree and paying TCLS’s tuition. Had Mr. Christensen
been aware that Thomas Cooley’s reported placement rates included temporary and part-time
employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or preferred, he would have
elected to either pay less to TCLS or perhaps not attend the school at all. Following his
graduation from law school, Mr. Christensen worked as a law clerk for a Utah law firm, and is
currently an associate at the same firm.
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24. Danny Wakefield currently does not practice law even though he has passed the
Utah Bar Exam and used to be a member in good standing of the Utah Bar until he voluntarily
assumed inactive status due to the fact that he was unable to obtain any type of employment in
the legal industry. Mr. Wakefield graduated from Thomas Cooley’s Lansing campus in 2007,
and in total paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees to the school while incurring tens
of thousands of dollars more in debt. Mr. Wakefield did not enroll in Thomas Cooley with the
intention of using his JD degree for an ongoing business or to start a non-legal business, but
rather intended to use his JD degree to prospectively better himself and his personal
circumstances through the attainment of full-time employment in the legal sector. In applying
and deciding to remain enrolled at Thomas Cooley, Mr. Wakefield relied on salary data and
employment information posted on TCLS’s website, marketing material and/or disseminated to
third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US News, and specifically
relied on TCLS’s representations that, depending on the year, approximately 80 percent of its
graduates were employed within nine months of graduation and earned a median salary of
roughly $50,000. Indeed, prior to Mr. Wakefield’s enrolling in Thomas Cooley, the school
posted on its website employment reports asserting that 79 percent of 2002 graduates and 77
percent of 2003 graduates secured employment within nine of graduation, and while Mr.
Wakefield was enrolled in TCLS the school posted on its website employment reports asserting
that 79 percent of 2004 graduates and 82 percent of 2005 graduates secured employment within
nine months of graduation. Furthermore, Mr. Wakefield when applying and deciding to remain
enrolled in Thomas Cooley was unaware that the school’s reported placement rates included
temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or
preferred -- employment Mr. Wakefield would have been eligible for even without obtaining a
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JD degree and paying TCLS’s tuition. Had Mr. Wakefield been aware that Thomas Cooley’s
reported placement rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for
which a JD was not required or preferred, he would have elected to either pay less to TCLS or
perhaps not attend the school at all. Following his graduation from law school, Mr. Wakefield
was unable to find any type of employment in the legal sector, and currently manages the
deliveries of telephone books.
25. Benjamin Forsgren is a contracts manager in Utah who is currently a member in
good standing of the Utah Bar. Mr. Forsgren graduated from Thomas Cooley’s Lansing campus
in 2008, and in total paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees to the school while
incurring tens of thousands of dollars more in debt. Mr. Forsgren did not enroll in Thomas
Cooley with the intention of using his JD degree for an ongoing business or to start a non-legal
business, but rather intended to use his JD degree to prospectively better himself and his personal
circumstances through the attainment of full-time employment in the legal sector. In applying
and deciding to remain enrolled at Thomas Cooley, Mr. Forsgren relied on salary data and
employment information posted on TCLS’s website, marketing material and/or disseminated to
third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US News, and specifically
relied on TCLS’s representations that, depending on the year, approximately 80 percent of its
graduates were employed within nine months of graduation and earned a median salary of
roughly $50,000. Indeed, prior to Mr. Forsgren’s enrolling in Thomas Cooley, the school posted
on its website employment reports asserting that 77 percent of 2003 graduates and 79 percent of
2004 graduates secured employment within nine of graduation, and while Mr. Forsgren was
enrolled in TCLS the school posted on its website employment reports asserting that 82 percent
of 2005 and 2006 graduates secured employment within nine months of graduation.
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Furthermore, Mr. Forsgren when applying and deciding to remain enrolled in Thomas Cooley
was unaware that the school’s reported placement rates included temporary and part-time
employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or preferred -- employment
Mr. Forsgren would have been eligible for even without obtaining a JD degree and paying
TCLS’s tuition. Had Mr. Forsgren been aware that Thomas Cooley’s reported placement rates
included temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for which a JD was not
required or preferred, he would have elected to either pay less to TCLS or perhaps not attend the
school at all. Following his graduation from law school, Mr. Forsgren has worked as a contracts
manager at a company in Utah.
26. Shane Hobbs currently resides in Pennsylvania. Mr. Hobbs graduated from
Thomas Cooley’s Lansing campus in 2010, and in total paid tens of thousands of dollars in
tuition and fees to the school while incurring tens of thousands of dollars more in debt. Mr.
Hobbs did not enroll in Thomas Cooley with the intention of using his JD degree for an ongoing
business or to start a non-legal business, but rather intended to use his JD degree to prospectively
better himself and his personal circumstances through the attainment of full-time employment in
the legal sector. In applying and deciding to remain enrolled at Thomas Cooley, Mr. Hobbs
relied on salary data and employment information posted on TCLS’s website, marketing material
and/or disseminated to third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US
News, and specifically relied on TCLS’s representations that, depending on the year,
approximately 80 percent of its graduates were employed within nine months of graduation and
earned a median salary of roughly $50,000. Indeed, prior to Mr. Hobbs’s enrolling in Thomas
Cooley, the school posted on its website an employment report asserting that 82 percent of 2005
graduates secured employment within nine of graduation, and while Mr. Hobbs was enrolled in
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TCLS the school posted on its website an employment report asserting that 82 percent of 2006
graduates secured employment within nine months of graduation. Furthermore, Mr. Hobbs when
applying and deciding to remain enrolled in Thomas Cooley was unaware that the school’s
reported placement rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for
which a JD was not required or preferred -- employment Mr. Hobbs would have been eligible for
even without obtaining a JD degree and paying TCLS’s tuition. Had Mr. Hobbs been aware that
Thomas Cooley’s reported placement rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or
employment for which a JD was not required or preferred, he would have elected to either pay
less to TCLS or perhaps not attend the school at all. Following his graduation from law school,
Mr. Hobbs has been unable to secure any type of legal employment, and has worked as a
substitute teacher and day laborer at a golf course.
27. Kevin Prince is a practicing attorney in Michigan who is currently a member in
good standing of the Michigan Bar. Mr. Prince graduated from Thomas Cooley’s Lansing
campus in 2009, and in total paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees to the school
while incurring tens of thousands of dollars more in debt. Mr. Prince did not enroll in Thomas
Cooley with the intention of using his JD degree for an ongoing business or to start a non-legal
business, but rather intended to use his JD degree to prospectively better himself and his personal
circumstances through the attainment of full-time employment in the legal sector. In applying
and deciding to remain enrolled at Thomas Cooley, Mr. Prince relied on salary data and
employment information posted on TCLS’s website, marketing material and/or disseminated to
third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US News, and specifically
relied on TCLS’s representations that, depending on the year, approximately 80 percent of its
graduates were employed within nine months of graduation and earned a median salary of
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roughly $50,000. Indeed, prior to Mr. Prince’s enrolling in Thomas Cooley, the school posted on
its website an employment report asserting that 82 percent of 2005 graduates secured
employment within nine of graduation, and while Mr. Prince was enrolled in TCLS the school
posted on its website an employment report asserting that 82 percent of 2006 graduates secured
employment within nine months of graduation. Furthermore, Mr. Prince when applying and
deciding to remain enrolled in Thomas Cooley was unaware that the school’s reported placement
rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for which a JD was not
required or preferred -- employment Mr. Prince would have been eligible for even without
obtaining a JD degree and paying TCLS’s tuition. Had Mr. Prince been aware that Thomas
Cooley’s reported placement rates included temporary and part-time employment and/or
employment for which a JD was not required or preferred, he would have elected to either pay
less to TCLS or perhaps not attend the school at all. Following his graduation from law school,
Mr. Prince was forced to take temporary, contract assignments reviewing documents in order to
make ends meet, until finding full-time, permanent employment nearly a year after graduating
from law school.
II. Defendants
28. Defendant Thomas Cooley is an ABA accredited law school and non-profit
corporation headquartered in Lansing, Michigan, but with satellite campuses also in Ann Arbor,
Auburn Hills and Grand Rapids. For the 2010-2011 academic year, it enrolled a total of 4,001
students, 82 percent of whom are matriculated on a part-time basis. The current annual tuition
for full-time students at Thomas Cooley is $36,750, while miscellaneous costs such as room,
board and living expenses bring the total cost to attending TCLS to an estimated $52,000. For
the fiscal year 2009, Thomas Cooley’s total operating revenue was $117,577,686 including
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$108,979,296 in tuition fees, and its total operating costs are $97,196,760, including $47,158,197
in monies paid out for employees’ salaries. In the past two years, the school has paid its Dean,
Don LeDuc, $548,047 and $523,213 in total compensation, while still paying its former Dean
and school founder, Thomas Brennan, $368,581 in total compensation for 2008 and $370, 245
for 2009. Thomas Cooley’s 11 other highest paid employees earned between $200,225 and
$249,499 in total compensation respectively.
29. The true names and capacities (whether individual, corporate, associate or
otherwise) of Defendants Does 1 though 20, inclusive, are unknown to Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs sue
these Defendants by fictitious names and will seek leave to amend this Complaint after their
identities are learned. Each fictitious Defendant contributed to the acts and practices alleged
herein. Plaintiffs are informed and believe that the fictitiously named Defendants proximately
caused Plaintiffs’ damages.
FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
I. Background Information
A. A Veritable “JD Factory”
30. Churning out nearly 1,000 newly-minted JD graduates each year, Thomas Cooley
is by far the largest law school in the country with approximately 4,000 students spread out
across four campuses, the overwhelming majority of whom -- 82 percent -- are enrolled on a
part-time basis. Just recently, on August 8, 2011, Thomas Cooley announced that it will be
opening a Tampa Bay-area campus in Riverview, Florida in May 2012 that can accommodate a
planned enrollment of 700 students.
31. According to US News, Thomas Cooley has the lowest admissions standards of
any accredited or provisionally accredited law school in the country. For 2010, it accepted 83
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percent of all applicants, an acceptance rate that is nearly 15 percentage points more than the
second least selective law school, Phoenix School of Law. The mean LSAT score for incoming
students is 146 and the mean undergraduate GPA is 2.99, both lows for all accredited and
provisionary accredited law schools.
32. Yet despite its relatively lax admissions standards, remaining enrolled in Thomas
Cooley is quite difficult, as the school has, comparatively speaking, lackluster retention rates.
For example, in 2008 almost 32 percent of the roughly 1,500 students who enrolled in Thomas
Cooley failed to matriculate for their second year, while, incredibly, second-year students still
enjoyed an attrition rate of 10 percent. Even 22 third-year students -- approximately three
percent of the class -- either failed or dropped out during the academic year. Indeed, failing out
hundreds of students each year seems to be an essential part of Thomas Cooley’s business model,
which is to enroll the maximum number of students, regardless of whether they are adequately
prepared for law school, all the while retaining millions of dollars in tuition fees.
B. Becoming “America’s Largest Law School” While Maintaining an 80 Percent Placement Rate 33. Beginning in the early 2000s, Thomas Cooley embarked on a strategy to become
“America’s Largest Law School.” See “Thomas Cooley’s Strategic Plan Summary June 2004
Report” (attaching Ex. 1). Consequently, between 2001 and 2004, Thomas Cooley’s entering
class increased dramatically, rising from 918 students in 2001 to 1385 students in 2004, thereby
fulfilling the administration’s goal. Id. Likewise, as discussed supra, the number of graduates
jumped from404 in 2004 to 503 in 2005 to 612 in 2006 to a whopping 958 in 2009.
34. However, in achieving this goal, the Thomas Cooley administration openly fretted
that “[e]mployment remains a major challenge.” Id at p.3. Yet, despite increasing its total
number of graduates by an astounding 137 percent from 2004 to 2009, Thomas Cooley, defying
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all rules of statistical probability and the principles of mathematics, has somehow maintained an
80 percent placement rate with “Madoff”-like consistency, even though the legal market --
especially in the State of Michigan, where the largest percentage of Thomas Cooley graduates
practice -- has essentially stagnated.
C. History of Unfounded Claims
35. In marketing itself to prospective students, Thomas Cooley makes a number of
bold, if not incredulous statements that are incommensurate with its low academic and
reputational standings in the legal marketplace. For example, Dean LeDuc and former Dean
Brennan publish their own law school rankings titled “Judging the Law Schools,” which,
coincidentally, ranks Thomas Cooley as the second “best” law school in the country, right below
the top-ranked school, Harvard Law School, and well above such notable institutions as Yale,
Columbia, the University of Chicago and Stanford. These largely self-serving rankings include
numerous factors that, at first glance, have little pedagogical or edifying value and have
absolutely nothing to do with training students to be attorneys, such as the overall size of the
student body, total minority enrollment, library total square footage, library seating capacity, and
the square footage of a law school’s physical premises. Each of these factors are given equal
statistical weight to other, seemingly more important factors, like bar passage rate and
percentage of graduates employed.
36. Naturally, Thomas Cooley’s law school rankings have been met with great
skepticism, if not outright ridicule, and no reputable academic or legal commentator takes it
seriously.1 Nonetheless, the school continues to publish its “Judging the Law Schools” year in
1 See e.g. Elie Mystal, “Latest Cooley Rankings Achieve New Heights of Intellectual Dishonesty,” Abovethelaw.com, February 8, 2011,http://abovethelaw.com/2011/02/latest-cooley-law-school-rankings-achieve-new-heights-of-intellectual-dishonesty/ (“This, my friends, is funny.
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and year out, releasing its 12th edition in February 2011, and engage in dubious marketing
practices that are all too emblematic of its bottom-line mentality.
II. Underlying Fraud Claims
37. Thomas Cooley is accredited by the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and
Admissions to the Bar. As mandated by Section 509(a) of the ABA’s 2010-2011 Standards for
Approval of Law Schools (“Section 509(a)”), an accredited law school must “publish basic
consumer information” in a “fair and accurate manner reflective of actual practice.” As of now
and throughout the Class Period, law schools would satisfy this virtually meaningless and non-
existent criterion by reporting jobs that are temporary or part-time or have absolutely nothing to
do with obtaining a JD degree as “employment.”
38. Pursuant to this requirement, Thomas Cooley publishes its employment statistics
on its website under the “Consumer Information” tab. In posting the data and marketing itself to
prospective students, the school includes a separate tab, titled “Alumni Success Stories,” which
highlights the employment achievements of recent graduates and includes glowing testimonials
from graduates explaining how attending Thomas Cooley helped them secure their current
positions.
A. Statements Constituting Fraud
39. Currently and for the past eight months, Thomas Cooley has posted on its
website the employment data and salary information for the Class of 2010, which is composed of
But it’s also serious. Because there are real people studying at Cooley right now, and I don’t think they understand how horrible it makes the school look when the administration publishes things like this… There are a lot of legal educators who hate the U.S. News law school rankings. There are a lot of people who think that the way U.S. News does things is wrong. But whatever chance you have of making your alternative rankings gain traction flies out of the window when you put yourself at #2 -- four tiers higher than where U.S. News has you.”);; see also Michael Kraemer, “Thomas Cooley is an Embarrassment,” Politicalcartel.org, March 3, 2010, http://politicalcartel.org/2010/03/03/thomas-cooley-law-school-is-an-embarrassment/.
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students who graduated in September 2009, January 2010 and May 2010. See 2010 Thomas
Cooley Employment Report and Salary Survey (the “2010 Employment Report”) (attaching Ex.
2). This information is obtained by job surveys that Thomas Cooley sends out to all recent
graduates, and all information contained in this report is unaudited, unverified and self-reported.
According to the 2010 Employment Report, based on a relatively paltry response rate of 83
percent2 (meaning that 154 of 934 graduates failed to respond to the survey), approximately 76
percent of the class were employed nine months after graduation, including 50 percent of whom
were allegedly working in private practice, 18 percent in “business,” 15 percent in government,
two percent in public interest, and three percent both in judicial clerkships and academia. The
average reported salary for the entire class was $54,796, including $52,318 for those in private
practice, $71,470 for those in “business,” and $53,312 for those in government.
40. Throughout the Class Period, Thomas Cooley has reported similar employment
reports demonstrating its graduates’ purported success. For example, for the Class of 2009,
based on a relatively paltry response rate of 84 percent3 (i.e. 151 of 958 graduates failed to
respond to the survey), approximately 78 class were employed nine months after graduation,
including 56 percent of whom were allegedly working in private practice, 17 percent in
“business,” 14 percent in government, four percent in public interest, five percent in judicial
clerkships and three percent in academia. See 2009 Thomas Cooley Employment Report and
Salary Survey (the “2009 Employment Report”) (attaching Ex. 3).4 The average salary for the
2Nationally, approximately 97 percent of 2010 law school graduates responded to their schools’ employment survey. 3According to US News, Thomas Cooley’s response rate was the third lowest of all accredited law schools for 2009, and nationally approximately 96 percent of 2009 graduates responded to their schools’ employment survey. 4Upon information and belief, Defendants posted on its website the 2009 Employment Report between 2010 and 2011.
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entire class was $52,000, including $52,000 for those in private practice, $61,000 for those in
“business,” and $50,000 for those in government.
41. For the Class of 2006, the numbers seemed even more impressive. Based on a
relatively paltry response rate of 82 percent (i.e. 111 of 612 graduates failed to respond to the
survey), approximately 82 percent of the class were employed nine months after graduation,
including 47 percent of whom were allegedly working in private practice, 20 percent in
“business,” 17 percent in government, six percent in public interest, eight percent in judicial
clerkships and two percent in academia. See 2006 Thomas Cooley Employment Report and
Salary Survey (the “2006 Employment Report”) (attaching Ex. 4)5. The average salary for the
entire class was $52,000, including $54,000 for those in private practice, $61,000 for those in
“business,” and $48,000 for those in government.
42. For the Class of 2005, based on a shockingly low response rate of 68 percent (i.e.
161 of 503 graduates failed to respond to the survey), approximately 82 percent of the class were
employed nine months after graduation, including 50 percent of whom were allegedly working in
private practice, 16 percent in “business,” 15 percent in government, five percent in public
interest, ten percent in judicial clerkships and two percent in academia. See 2005 Thomas
Cooley Employment Report and Salary Survey (the “2005 Employment Report”) (attaching Ex.
5).6 The average salary for the entire class was $49,000, including $49,000 for those in private
practice, $60,000 for those in “business,” and $45,000 for those in government.
43. For the Class of 2004, based on a response rate of 82 percent (i.e. 72 out of 404
graduates failed to respond to the survey), approximately 79 percent of the class were employed
5Upon information and belief, Defendants posted on its website the 2006 Employment Report between 2007 and 2010, and did not post employment reports for 2007 and 2008. 6Upon information and belief, Defendants posted on its website the 2005 Employment Report between 2006 and 2007.
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nine months after graduation, including 45 percent of whom were allegedly working in private
practice, 16 percent in “business,” 18 percent in government, ten percent in public interest, eight
percent in judicial clerkships and three percent in academia. See 2004 Thomas Cooley
Employment Report and Salary Survey (the “2004 Employment Report”) (attaching Ex. 6). 7
44. Throughout the Class Period, Thomas Cooley itself admits that its reported
placement rates have hovered between 76 and 82 percent, “with a similar range reported back to
2000,” even though its total number of graduates has increased by 137 percent over the past five
years. See Thomas Cooley Press Release, dated July 14, 2011 (attaching Ex. 7). 8
45. Tellingly, the employment reports make a number of startling factual omissions
that would give prospective students a more accurate picture of their post-graduation
employment prospects. For example, Thomas Cooley simply presents an overall employment
number, and fails to break down what percentage of graduates were employed in either part-time
or temporary positions, or whether a job requires a JD degree. Accordingly, based on these
classifications, a graduate could be working as a barista in Starbucks -- or toiling away in any
capacity in any kind of job, no matter how menial or poorly compensated or unrelated to law --
and would be deemed employed and working in “business,” even though such employment is
clearly temporary in nature and obviously does not require a JD degree.9 Similarly, a contract
7 Upon information and belief, Defendants posted on its website the 2004 Employment Report between 2005 and 2006. 8Thomas Cooley circulated this press release upon filing two sham, SLAPP lawsuits against Plaintiffs’ Counsel, David Anziska and Jesse Strauss, and four “John Doe” plaintiffs for alleged defamatory statements made over the Internet. This crude, cynical attempt to intimidate prospective plaintiffs, chill free speech and police the Internet has been made with near universal derision, and Plaintiffs’ counsel have simultaneously moved to dismiss Thomas Cooley’s baseless claims and to sanction both Thomas Cooley and its attorneys. 9Indeed, two of the Plaintiffs, Danny Wakefield and Shane Hobbs, due to their inability to secure any type of legal employment, have been forced to work as a telephone book salesman
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attorney who has yet to secure permanent employment and is forced to toil away in transitory
document review projects would be deemed “employed” under Thomas Cooley’s broad
guidelines.
46. Thomas Cooley also grossly inflates its graduates’ reported mean salaries, by
calculating them based on a small, deliberately selected subset of graduates who actually submit
their salary information, thereby presenting statistically meaningless data that is not an
emblematic representation of the entire class. Thus, to take the above example, if a graduate
working in Starbucks as a barista did not report his/her salary information that could potentially
have a significant statistical effect on Thomas Cooley’s reported mean salary for those employed
in “business,” lowering the number substantially from a seemingly impressive $71,470 for the
Class of 2010.
B. Disseminating False Information to Third Parties
47. The school also disseminates employment data and salary information to other
sources that are readily available to prospective students. In general, there are three primary
sources that Thomas Cooley -- along with all other accredited law schools -- provides such
information to: US News, the ABA and the National Association of Law Placement (“NALP”).10
However, the US News and the ABA simply require law schools to report an overall employment
number, and do not require schools to distinguish between part-time and full-time jobs or
temporary and permanent employment. Consequently, the data contained in these sources is
and as a substitute teacher/day laborer, respectively, in order to make ends meet, positions that they obviously could have obtained without a JD degree. See infra ¶24, ¶ 26.
10 All ABA-accredited and provisionally-accredited law schools are required to provide employment data to the ABA, but only submit such data to U.S. News and NALP on a voluntary basis.
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riddled with the same legerdemain, dubious calculations and deliberate omissions as found in the
employment information posted and marketed by Thomas Cooley on its website and brochures.
48. In a letter sent to the deans of all accredited law schools, Brian Kelly, the editor-
in-chief of the US News, essentially conceded this point, acidly noting that the “entire law school
sector is perceived to be less than candid” when reporting employment data, and that many
schools appear “not to treat the ABA reporting rules with the seriousness one would assume.”
Robert Morse, “U.S. News Urges Law School Deans to Improve Employment Data,” U.S. News
& World Report, March 9, 2011 (attaching Ex. 8). Acknowledging the obvious, Kelly
concludes, “Perhaps we need metrics besides total employment rates to evaluate a successful law
program.” Id.
49. Nonetheless, despite knowing full well of the deficiencies in law school-supplied
employment data, such information constitutes a whopping 18 percent (four percent for the
employment rate upon graduation and 14 percent for the rate nine months after graduation) of a
law school’s ranking in US News, the second most important factor after a law school’s peer
assessment.
50. As for NALP, law schools, when responding to their questionnaires, must not
simply report an overall employment number, but specifically break down the exact type of
employment their graduates have obtained, differentiating between part-time and full-time jobs
or whether a position requires a JD degree. Unfortunately, NALP does not either publish or
make available to the public these questionnaires, and instead compiles and tabulates their data
into a single document which contains aggregate statistical information from all law schools.
See NALP Class of 2009 National Summary Report (“NALP Employment Report”) & NALP
Class of 2010 National Summary Report (“2010 NALP Employment Report”)(attaching Ex. 9).
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51. In other words, Thomas Cooley, by virtue of its participation in NALP’s annual
employment survey, clearly has the means to, and actually does, distinguish between various
degrees of employment, and breaks down the exact percentage of its recent graduates who have
secured either part-time or full-time employment or whether a position requires a JD degree.
Yet, rather than including these numbers on its website and marketing material and making this
information available to public at large, the school continues to present highly misleading data to
prospective and current students that grossly inflate post-graduation employment rates while
depicting an unrealistic, if not entirely inaccurate picture of bountiful career prospects that do not
exist.
III. Manipulating Employment Data
52. In reality, the employment data reported and marketed by Thomas Cooley bears
little resemblance to the actual experiences and dim employment opportunities encountered by
their recent graduates. Based on interviews with former students and other investigatory work,
Plaintiffs believe that perhaps fewer than 25 percent -- if not even fewer -- of recent Thomas
Cooley graduates secure full-time, permanent employment for which a JD degree is required or
preferred within nine months of graduating, and that the majority of them work in either part-
time or temporary positions.
A. Proof of Fraud
53. Indeed, perhaps there is no better proof that Thomas Cooley grossly inflates its
placement rates than the fact that these rates have remained eerily steady throughout the past
decade, even though the school has experienced a seismic growth spurt, and its total number of
graduates between 2004 and 2009 has increased by an astounding 554 students or roughly 137
percent. Compare Ex. 3 and Ex. 6. For that matter, the school’s reported placement rates for the
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classes of 2009 and 2010 have barely dipped, despite the onslaught of the “Great Recession”
which has decimated the legal industry, leading to thousands of mass layoffs.
54. Similarly, basic deductive reasoning suggests that the school is failing to disclose
that the majority of its graduates are employed in either part-time or temporary or non-legal
positions. According to the 2010 Employment Report, 157 out of a total 285 graduates working
in private practice are employed by law firms with 2-10 attorney, while 70 graduates -- or nearly
25 percent -- are solo practitioners. See Ex. 2. Most likely, the overwhelming majority of these
graduates are not gainfully employed, and are either working on a part-time or temporary basis.
To that end, only 11 students -- or about one percent of Thomas Cooley’s entire graduating class
– are purportedly working in firms with more than 100 attorneys.
55. Moreover, an examination of the 2009 NALP Employment Report confirms that
Thomas Cooley blatantly manipulates employment data, and that substantially fewer than 76-78
percent of recent graduates are gainfully employed.
56. According to NALP, 88.2 percent of all law school graduates are “employed”
within nine months of graduation. However, upon greater scrutiny, this number is virtually
meaningless, as it includes any kind of employment, no matter how unrelated to the legal field.
See Ex. 8.
57. Rather, the 2009 NALP Employment Report further breaks down this number into
specific percentages of graduates who are working either part-time or in non-legal jobs. By
doing this, it appears that, in actuality, only 62.9 percent of all graduates have secured some kind
of full-time legal employment.
58. Still, even that number is grossly inflated, as the 2009 NALP Employment Report
does not distinguish between temporary and permanent employment, and, thus, does not
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expressly exclude temporary positions. If the report was to exclude temporary employment,
most likely the employment number would fall well below 50 percent.11
59. Still, even that number is probably significantly inflated, since the NALP data is
based on unaudited, unverified, self-reported information. In actuality, if law schools were
required to employ proper accounting methodologies to ascertain the true employment status of
all of their graduates -- i.e. by actually speaking to each graduate instead of relying on self-
reported data from those who actually supply it -- the employment number would be much
lower.
60. Moreover, upon information and belief, Thomas Cooley, much like many other
law schools, tabulates, calculates and tallies the raw data inputted in the job surveys filled out by
recent graduates in a shoddy, slipshod manner, cynically choosing to omit or ignore critical
statistical data that would substantially lower both placement rates and salary information
reported in its employment reports and distributed to third-party data clearinghouses.12
61. One must also bear in mind that the NALP employment number includes data
supplied by all law schools, the overwhelming majority of whom are ranked significantly higher
11 For greater analysis on the accuracy -- or inaccuracy -- of law school employment data
see Professor Paul Campos’s article in the New Republic, “Served: How Law Schools Completely Misrepresent Their Job Numbers” (April 25, 2011), where he courageously takes law schools to task for adopting dubious accounting methods in tabulating and reporting recent graduates’ employment data. (Attached as Ex. 10). In particular, he deftly demonstrates through some impressive deductive reasoning how for one highly ranked state school the actual percentage of graduates who have secured full-time, permanent legal positions could be as low as 33 percent. (Id).
12 For example, one law school, the University of California-Davis School of Law, was found to be classifying students who were studying for the bar exam as being “employed at the time of graduation,” even though they obviously were not earning any money for their studies and did not have a job lined up following taking the bar. Joel Murray, “Professional Dishonesty: Do U.S. Law Schools Who that Report False or Misleading Employment Statistics Violate Consumer Protection Laws?” Working Paper at pp. 12, fn. 49, June 7, 2011 (available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1854709).
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and have considerable more prestige than Thomas Cooley, which is ranked by US News in the
fourth or bottom tier of all accredited law schools. As such, logic dictates that Thomas Cooley’s
true employment rate would be well below the statistical mean of the bell curve.
62. Upon information and belief, Thomas Cooley has also employed a limited
program to further “pretty up” their employment numbers, by, among other things, hiring
unemployed graduates as “research assistants” or other “make work” positions for a specified
period of time, so as to classify them as “employed” in various employment surveys. In some
instances these internships begin in the ninth month following graduation, right before Thomas
Cooley would be required to report its employment data to the ABA, NALP and US News.
63. This practice is emblematic of the extreme measures many law schools across the
country have undertaken recently to paper over the devastation that the Great Recession has
wrought. According to NALP, 42 percent of all law schools have created post-graduate “jobs
programs” into which they hired their own recently graduated students. In particular, for the
Class of 2009, it is estimated that these programs provided over 800 jobs, accounting for a full
two percentage points in the NALP overall employment rate. For the Class of 2010, this number
has jumped to 1,200 jobs, or approximately 2.7 percent of all jobs taken by law school graduates.
See “Selected NALP Findings for the Class of 2010” (attaching Ex. 11). Thus, instead of coming
clean to prospective and current students and acknowledging the steep odds that graduates face
in securing gainful employment, law schools continue to bury their heads in the sand like nothing
is wrong, as if they can somehow wish away the brutal reality of the current economic
environment.
64. Thomas Cooley’s manipulation of employment data is all the more galling
considering that its students are graduating in one of the grimmest legal job markets in decades.
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Since 2009 alone, some 15,000 attorney and legal-staff jobs have been eliminated by large
corporate law firms, while commoditized, legal-entry work such as document review is
increasingly being outsourced to countries outside the US, such as India. The entry-level
employment offer rate for 2009 summer associates was at a historic low of 69 percent, as
compared to 90 percent in 2008 and 93 percent in 2007. Scores of law firms have cancelled
summer programs, and in a recent survey 55 percent of law schools reported a decrease of 30
percent or more of the number of firms doing on-campus interviews, an unprecedented decline.
In another survey, only 3 percent of on-campus recruiters indicated that they were looking to hire
third-year law students, as compared to 25 percent in 2008 and 42 percent in 2007.
65. The job statistics for the Class of 2010 are equally grim, if not more so.
According to NALP, the overall employment rate for new law school graduates is the lowest it
has been since 1996. See Ex. 11. Only 68.4 percent of the class have obtained employment for
which a JD degree is required, while barely over 50 percent of the class are working in private
practice, a five-percent drop from the previous year. Id. A paltry 71 percent of the class have
obtained a job that is both full-time and permanent. Id. The number of graduates working as
solo practitioners has similarly soared, rising to 5.7 percent of all graduates employed in private
practice, which is most likely a result of graduates, faced with negligible job prospects, being
forced to hang up their own shingle. Id.
66. The starting salaries of newly minted lawyers have likewise dropped precipitously
over the past few years. The national median salary for the Class of 2010 was $63,000, a $9000
-- or 13 percent -- decline from the previous year, while the national mean salary was $84,111,
an almost $10,000 -- or ten percent -- decline from the previous year. 13 Moreover, because many
13 See http://www.nalp.org/classof2010_salpressrel.
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large law firm salaries cluster around $145,000 and $160,000, whereas most smaller firm salaries
hover in the $40,000 to $65,000 range, relatively few salaries were actually near the overall
median or mean.
67. A recent study by the consulting company Economic Modeling Specialist, Inc.
(“EMSI”) confirms the historically weak job market and dire employment prospects facing
current law school graduates.14 According to the study, every state besides Nebraska and
Wisconsin are producing more attorneys than they need for the foreseeable future. Across the
country, there were twice as many people who passed the bar in 2009 -- 53,508 -- as there were
job openings -- 26,239. In Michigan the numbers are particularly daunting, with 1,024 people
having passed the bar, even though the state is estimated to only need 862 new lawyers for each
year through 2015. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the creation of 28,000 new lawyer
positions annually, well below the roughly 43,000 freshly-minted JDs pumped out in 2009.
B. Intent to Defraud
68. Thomas Cooley, as with any law school, has every incentive to perpetuate this
mass deception, because they are not required by the ABA, Department of Education or any
other governing body to independently audit or verify their employment data. The incentive to
cheat is so great that one law school dean, Phillip J. Closius of the University of Baltimore
School of Law, in a New York Times exposé about the manipulation of placement rates went to
the extent of publicly conceding that “[t]here are millions of dollars riding on students’ decisions
about where to go to law school, and that creates real institutional pressures [to manipulate
data].”15
14 See http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/the-lawyer-surplus-state-by-state/. 15 On July 29, 2011, Mr. Closius formally resigned as dean from the University of
Baltimore. In stepping down, Mr. Closius circulated a highly controversial -- and surprisingly
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69. Thomas Cooley’s tuition has risen dramatically over the past decade, with annual
increases that far exceed the level of inflation, and currently the tuition for full-time students
stands at $36,750, as opposed to the $24,750 that it cost a student to attend Thomas Cooley in
2005-2006. This sharp increase mirrors the tuition trend in the legal education industry in
general. Over the past two decades, law school tuition has risen exponentially, far exceeding any
increase in lawyers’ starting salaries, and at many private institutions can exceed well over
$40,000 annually, excluding living expenses. Between 1989 and 2009 alone, tuition rates have
shot up by 317 percent, well above the 71 percent seen at the undergraduate level.
70. The dramatic increase in law school tuition has dovetailed with the dramatic
increase in faculty compensation and size. The total number of law school faculty positions has
grown rapidly over the past two decades, rising from 7,241 full-time faculty members in 1990 to
10,965 full-time positions in 2008. Law school professors and deans are perhaps the best
remunerated in academia today, enjoying both lavish perks and exorbitant salaries that rival
those of Fortune 500 executives. For example, Thomas Cooley took in over $116 million in
revenue for the fiscal year 2009, and in the past two years paid its Dean, Don LeDuc, $548,047
frank -- resignation letter in which he conceded that the University of Baltimore president had asked for his resignation, and that the tensions between them had largely stemmed from the law school’s rapidly rising tuition and the fact that the University was essentially using the school to subsidize the undergraduate program, retaining an astounding 45 percent of all revenue generated by law tuition, fees and state subsidies. See http://abovethelaw.com/2011/07/a-law-dean-resigns-and-spills-the-beans-on-how-his-university-has-been-taking-advantage-of-law-students/#more-85162. The problem had grown so acute that the ABA’s Accreditation Committee requested that the University submit a report by March 2012 “which provides in part a rationale for the School of Law’s share of costs for non-law school activities and central administration services and information about any agreement between the Law School and the University regarding a fair process by which the Law School’s contribution to the University for direct and indirect costs will be determined.” Id.
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and $523,213 in total compensation as compared to about $230,000 a mere six years ago, while
still paying its former Dean and school founder, Thomas Brennan, $368,581 and $370,245 in
total compensation. Thomas Cooley’s 11 other highest paid employees earned between
$200,225 and $249,499 in total compensation respectively, and the school spent over $47 million
on faculty salaries.
71. More disturbingly, Thomas Cooley misleads and defrauds its students while
saddling them with tens of thousands of dollars in crushing, non-dischargeable debt. According
to US News, TCLS students graduate on average with a staggering $105,798 in loans, with a
stunning 93 percent of them taking out loans to attend the school.16 Nationwide, the debt burden
of law school graduates continues to rise unabated, and the average debt burden for all law
school graduates is almost $100,000, up sharply from $16,000 in 1987.
72. Worse yet, Thomas Cooley is primarily marketing its product to naïve, relatively
unsophisticated consumers -- many of whom are barely removed from college -- who are often
making their first “big-ticket” purchase based on asymmetrical information. These prospective
students are applying to law school with one objective in mind: to attain the kind of job that
provides compensation and a lifestyle that is commensurate with and worthy of the enormous
time, money and personal sacrifice invested in a legal education. However, if Thomas Cooley
was to disclose accurate employment data and the steep odds its graduates face in securing
gainful employment, it would become abundantly clear to any rational purchaser how poor of an
investment attending TCLS is.
16 According to FinAid.org, a graduate needs to make at least $138,000 annually to repay $100,000 without enduring financial hardship, or $92,000 annually to repay the debt with financial difficultly. See http/www.finaid.org.calculators/loanpayments/phtml.
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73. To a remarkable extent, Thomas Cooley -- like most law schools -- has been
astonishingly successful in pulling the wool over prospective students. Currently, the school
enrolls about 4,000 students, and its enrollment has skyrocketed since 2006, when the ABA
finally granted accreditation to its three satellite campuses. Last year, law schools awarded over
43,000 JD degrees (an additional 41,156 this year), an increase of 11 percent from a decade
earlier, while the number of students taking the law school entrance examination (LSAT)
increased by over 20 percent between 2007 and 2009.17 For the 2009-2010 academic year, a
record 154,549 students were enrolled in American law schools, including a record 51,426 first-
year students, up by over 60 percent from the 91,225 students who enrolled in ABA accredited
law schools in 1971. The total number of law schools has increased by nine percent over the
past decade and by over 25 percent over the past four decades, and, despite the ominous
employment trends and dearth of available jobs, there are a handful of new law schools that are
slated to open their doors in the next few years. Allowing the status quo to persist will almost
certainly ensure that tens of thousands of law school graduates -- a whole “lost” generation of
lawyers -- will continue to be churned out over the next decade with absolutely no realistic
chance of ever earning back their investment. 18
17 Finally, after years of double-digit growth, law school applications for the 2011-2012 academic year dropped by 10 percent. See Nathan Koppel, “Bloom’s Off Law School Rope,” Wall Street Journal Law Blog, September 28, 2011, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/09/28/bloom-remains-off-law-school-rose/. Undoubtedly, this stems from the recent upsurge in media scrutiny on the inability of law school graduates to obtain gainful employment and the overall grim reality of one of the worst legal job market in decades. See e.g. David Segal, “Is Law School a Losing Game?” New York Times, January 8, 2011.
18True to its past pattern and practices of making unfounded claims that are simply not supported by facts, Thomas Cooley, despite the wealth of evidence indicating to the contrary, erroneously contends that the legal industry has somehow been immune to the ravages of the recession. See in general http://www.cooley.edu/reports/nationalem ployment.html. In fact, Thomas Cooley has issued its own report to expressly counter the narrative of “bloggers” and “small elements within the media” that attending law school could be financially ruinous and
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IV. Manipulating Salary Information
74. Further, Thomas Cooley grossly inflates their graduates’ reported mean salaries,
by calculating them based on a small, deliberately selected subset of graduates who actually
reported their salary information, and not on a broad, statistically meaningful representation of
its graduates.
75. For that matter, Thomas Cooley doesn’t even publish in its employment report the
percentage or number of graduates who actually report salary information. See Exs. 2-6. As
such, there is no possible way for a prospective student looking at Thomas Cooley’s marketing
material to determine if the reported salary information accurately reflects the salaries earned by
recent Thomas Cooley graduates.
76. Additionally, an examination of employment data produced by U.S. News
demonstrates the dubious value and deceptive nature of Thomas Cooley’s mean salary
information. According to US News, for the Class of 2009, only 38 percent of graduates
working in the private sector -- i.e. private practice or “business” -- reported salary information,
which is a mere 18 percent of the all graduates reporting employment data. Meanwhile US News
which supposedly summarizes data produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor that allegedly demonstrates that the actual unemployment rate for lawyers is 1.5 percent.
Needless to say, this report is full of logical fallacies, false assumptions, and deliberate half-truths and omissions, including, chiefly, that the data is self-reported and involves the employment rate for all attorneys, not recent graduates. See in general, Matt Leichter, “Dear Prospective Law Students, Do Not ‘Reasonably Rely’ on Cooley’s ‘Report One’” The AmLaw Daily, November 3, 2011, http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2011/11/dear-prospective-law-students-do-not-reasonably-rely-on-cooleys-report-one.html. Additionally, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (“BLS”) itself predicts that between 2008 and 2018 the U.S. economy will add roughly 240,000 attorney jobs, while ABA-accredited law schools are estimated to graduate over 440,000 graduates during that period of time. Id. The BLS’s Occupational Outlook Handbook specifically states about the employment prospects of recent law school graduates that “competition for job openings should continue to be keen because of the large number of students graduating from law school each year,” a sentiment it has persistently reiterated each year since 1996. Id
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did not report the percentage of students working in non-private-sector positions, such as
government or public interest, who disclosed salary information.
77. Upon information and belief, Plaintiffs believe that a substantial portion of recent
TCLS graduates make significantly less than the reported mean salaries, and that Thomas Cooley
has intentionally failed to include these salaries in any statistical analysis or calculations.
Thomas Cooley knowingly and purposely omits the salaries of graduates who have secured only
temporary or part-time employment from its official marketing material. This material
nondisclosure has the effect of “goosing” the numbers, making it appear their graduates earn
substantially more money than the reality of the situation.
78. In actuality, many TCLS graduates are in dire financial straits, living paycheck to
paycheck, barely able to pay off their tens of thousands of dollars in non-dischargeable debt,
much less save enough money for down payments for homes or other major purchases that
signify one’s entrance into adulthood. They are working in mostly dead-end jobs, doing
document review and other menial, mindless drudgery, essentially functioning as glorified
paralegals or secretaries with little control over their careers. In short, they do not earn -- and
most likely will never earn -- the kind of money that could possibly make attending Thomas
Cooley a worthwhile investment.
V. Challenging the Status Quo
79. Fortunately, after much public hand-wringing and increased media scrutiny, the
tectonic plates in the legal profession have finally begun to shift, as practitioners and politicians
alike are starting to roundly demand that law schools change their deceptive ways and accurately
report all available employment information.
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80. For example, Senator Barbara Boxer of California has sent three separate letters
to the ABA taking them to task for failing to properly police the law school industry. See
Letters from Senator Barbara Boxer to Stephen Zack, dated March 31, 2011 & May 20, 2011
(attaching Ex. 12). In her May 20th letter, she directly implored the ABA to require that all law
schools independently audit and verify employment data and salary information that are either
included in marketing material to prospective students or disseminated to third-party information
clearinghouses and publications, such as US News and the ABA. In her third letter sent on
October 6, 2011, she further admonished the organization for “resorting to half measures instead
of tackling a major problem head on” despite the deafening public outcry for greater scrutiny in
the way law schools disclose placement rates. See Letter from Senator Barbara Boxer to Wm. T.
Robinson III, dated October 6, 2011 (attaching Ex. 13). Senator Boxer has even reached across
the aisle with her colleague Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to ask the Department of
Education to step in and investigate the law school industry for its systemic failure to properly
disclose employment prospects to prospective and current students. See Letter from Senator
Barbara Boxer & Senator Tom Coburn to Kathleen Tighe, dated October 13, 2011 (attaching Ex.
14).
81. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa has sent his own letter to the ABA, demanding
that the organization answer 31 detailed questions pertaining to the ABA’s regulation of the law
school industry. See Letter from Senator Charles Grassley to Stephen Zack, dated July 11, 2011
(attaching Ex. 15). In particular, Senator Grassley references the questionable practices
employed by law schools when offering merit-based scholarships (i.e. they extend substantially
more scholarships than they can possibly renew), the supersaturated job market facing new
graduates, and the increased debt burden assumed by law school students as raising serious
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concerns whether tax payers will ultimately be on the hook for the billions of millions of dollars
in federally-backed loans that ultimately flow into law school coffers each year. Following an
inadequate response by the ABA to his queries, Senator Grasserly has sent a second letter, dated
August 8, 2011, challenging the ABA’s apparent confidence that law students will be able to pay
back their government-backed, non-dischargeable loans despite the dearth of available job
opportunities. See Letter from Senator Charles Grassley to Stephen Zack, dated August 8, 2011,
& Accompanying Press Release (the “Second Grassley Letter”)( attaching Ex. 16).
82. Similarly, a coalition of 55 law school student body presidents, fed up with the
ABA’s inability to properly police law schools, have sent to Congress proposed legislation that
would ensure “enhanced accuracy, accountability and transparency in the reporting of data
pertaining to legal education.” See Student Bar Association’s Proposed Bill (“SBA Bill”) and
accompanying Press Release (attaching Ex. 17). Among other things, the proposed legislation
creates a new standard for reporting employment data, requires law schools to submit annual
employment reports to the Department of Education (“DOE”), mandates that law school deans
personally endorse such reports, and empowers the DOE to audit the reports. The SBA Bill
expressly aims to parallel federal securities laws, where publicly-held companies must submit
annual reports to the SEC disclosing material financial information.
83. The problem has gotten so far out of hand that Bill Hebert, President of the
California Bar Association, in a much-publicized article in the California Bar Journal exhorts law
school deans to adopt more rigorous reporting standards by disclosing the type of detailed
employment and salary data that would allow students to get a realistic picture of their post-
graduate financial situation. Bill Hebert, “What is the Value of the Law Degree?” California Bar
Journal, February 2011(attaching Ex. 18). Hebert chides schools for “hiding employment
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outcomes in aggregate statistical forms,” and impresses upon them the need to reveal the exact
percentage of their graduates who have actually obtained full-time, permanent employment -- the
type of information Plaintiffs are now seeking. Id.
84. Along these lines, Howard B. Miller, the previous President of the California Bar,
went so far as to all but accuse law schools of committing fraud in the way they tabulate and
report employment information to third party data clearinghouses like the ABA and U.S. News.
Specifically, he wrote in the California Bar Journal: “There is notoriously unreliable self-
reporting by law schools and their graduates of employment statistics. They are unreliable in
only one direction, since the self reporting by law schools of ‘employment’ of graduates at
graduation and then nine months after graduation are, together, a significant factor in the U.S.
News rankings -- which are obsessed over, despite denials, by law schools and their
constituencies. The anecdotes are as telling as the statistics: prestigious lawyers in the state are
hiring their own children to work in their firms because even with their connections they were
unable to find employment elsewhere.” Howard B. Miller, “Truth in Lending and Careers,”
California Bar Journal, May 2010 (attaching Ex. 19).
VI. Role of the ABA
85. The ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar is responsible
for accrediting and regulating all accredited legal institutions. Unfortunately, despite years of
vociferous complaints by industry insiders regarding the pervasive practice that law schools
blatantly manipulate employment data, the ABA has been largely derelict in its duties,
essentially allowing law schools to behave with impunity as they bamboozle their students.
86. In general, the ABA has absolutely no mechanism by which to address Plaintiffs’
claims, since law school students and graduates are strictly prohibited from bringing such claims
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before the organization. Indeed, Rule 24 of the ABA Standards for Approval of Law Schools
expressly states:
This process is not available to serve as a mediating or dispute-resolving process for persons with complaints about the policies or actions of an approved law school. The Council, Accreditation Committee and the Consultant on Legal Education will not intervene with an approved law school on behalf of an individual with a complaint against or concern about action taken by a law school that adversely affects that individual. The outcome of this process will not be the ordering of any individual relief for any person or specific action by a law school with respect to any individual. (Emphasis added). 19
87. Considering the makeup of the two ABA committees that regulate law schools, it
is not surprising that the ABA has consistently acted on the law school industry’s behalf at the
expense of students and graduates. The ABA’s Legal Education Council is dominated by law
school deans, as both its current chair, John O’Brien of the New England School of Law, and
chair-elect, Kent Syverud of the Washington University School of Law, are deans of large,
prominent law schools. Likewise, the committee of the Legal Education Council which is
directly responsible for regulating the reporting of post-graduate placement data -- i.e. the
Questionnaire Committee -- is dominated by law school deans and professors, including its
current chair, Dean Art Gaudio of the Western New England College School of Law. See in
general Ex. 16 (Second Grassley Letter) at p. 2 (noting that legal academics and university
presidents and vice presidents comprise approximately 48, 52 and 64 percent of the three
accreditation-related committees).
19 Similarly, Plaintiffs cannot seek redress from the Department of Education, which administers Federal financial assistance to students, since the DOE only authorizes suits against the Secretary of Education, not against individual schools. See 20 U.S.C. § 1082(a)(2).
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88. The undue influence exerted by the legal academy over the ABA has led the
National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, which advises the
Department of Education on accreditation issues, to question the ABA’s overall competency as
an accrediting body. Specifically, the committee found that the ABA had failed to comply with
17 regulations, including, among others, failing “to set a standard for job placement by its
member institutions.” See http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2011/06/aba-is.html. One of
the members on the committee, Arthur Keiser, publicly accused the ABA of “not getting it,”
noting that an accrediting agency would never accredit an institution with 17 outstanding issues.
Id; see also Ex. 15 (First Grassley Letter) at p.1 (quoting June 11, 2011 article from The
Chronicle of Higher Education which describes the committee’s members as expressing
“frustration that they could not take stronger actions or at least state their concerns [regarding the
ABA’s lackluster accreditation process] with stronger language.”)
89. It is only until recently that the ABA has finally adopted measures that would
require greater reporting transparency, by mandating that law schools “unbundle” employment
data. See “Questionnaire Committee’s Memo on Reporting Placement Data on Annual
Questionnaire,” dated July 27, 2011 (attaching Ex. 20). Admittedly, these new guidelines mark a
positive first step forward and at least attempts to rectify the most egregious deceptive practices,
by, among other things, expressly mandating that law schools distinguish between various
degrees of employment, such as permanent or temporary, JD-required and not requiring a JD
degree, and whether a position is funded by a law school.
90. Nonetheless, the ABA has not gone nearly far enough in disincentivizing schools
from “cooking” the data. First, the guidelines will not go into effect for at least another year,
thereby allowing law schools to continue deceiving prospective students. For example, the ABA
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will not require that law schools publicly disclose the true employment data for the Class of
2010, even though it is retroactively requiring that school obtain such data for bookkeeping
purposes.20 Second, the guidelines still permit schools to continue self-reporting all employment
data and salary information, and do not require that they retain unrelated, independent third-
parties to audit and verify such data. Finally, these changes come too late for Plaintiffs and
thousands of TCLS graduates like them who have already taken on tens of thousands of dollars
in non-dischargeable debt based on Thomas Cooley’s deceptive and misleading statements.
91. Indeed, based on the ABA’s recent behavior one wonders how serious the
organization is in implementing these reforms. After initially agreeing to rely on the
independent-minded and industry gold-standard NALP to gather the relevant employment data,
the ABA, in a complete 180-degree turn, attempted to cut NALP out of the process entirely,
expressly rejecting the recommendation of the Questionnaire Committee that NALP and the
ABA work jointly together. See e.g., “Letter from James Leipold and Marcelyn Cox to Christine
Durham,” dated July 28, 2011 (attaching Ex. 21). In assessing the reason for this apparent
about-face, James Leipold, NALP’s Executive Director, in an interview with the National Law
20Robert Morse, “ABA Falls Short in Efforts to Improve Law School Placement Data,” U.S. News & World Report, September 1, 2011 (“The ABA says it will not publish school specific salary data [for the Class of 2010], but instead will publish salaries by state and region not linked to the performance of any school. These state and region results are not limited to the data from any particular law school. Prospective students want to know the average salaries of the graduates from each law school as part of being able to determine the economic viability of earning a J.D. degree from that school. The ABA should have the power to get law schools to report accurate salary data on a school-by-school basis and should trust law students to be able to understand the meaning and limits of such data.”); see also Karen Sloan, “ABA Stalls on Honing Law Schools’ Job Placement Reports,” The National Law Journal, September 26, 2011 (“The ABA Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar ‘has done a huge disservice to prospective law students, law schools and the legal profession,’ said Law School Transparency Executive Director Kyle McEntee. ‘The legal employment rate is a basic yet crucial part of informing prospective law students. The failure to require law schools to disclose this rate legitimizes questions about whether the section is a body captured by special interests.’”) (emphasis added).
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Journal stressed, “I think they [the ABA] see NALP's candor about the state of the legal job
market as harmful to the industry. I believe their intent is to recapture their ability to control the
message to the public about the status of the job market. There's a conflict of interest here.”21
While the two organizations, for the time being, have articulated a desire “to move forward” and
“discuss ways to address the needs of all parties,” no official compromise has been reached on
this issue.22
92. The sobering reality of the situation is that law schools are no different than the
proverbial fox guarding the henhouse, and when given the opportunity and incentive to act
within their self-interests by making themselves look better, they almost certainly will. Earlier
this year, the Dean of Villanova Law School was forced to come clean and admit that the school
in the past “knowingly” reported false and inaccurate information to the ABA.23 Likewise, the
21 Karen Sloan, “NALP Clashes with ABA over Jobs Data – and Hints at Legal Action,”
National Law Journal, August 1, 2011; see also, Professor William D. Henderson, “More Data but Less Transparency,” National Law Journal, August 2, 2011, (noting that ABA’s proposal would undermine NALP’s ability to collect, analyze and publish accurate employment data;; “In a nutshell, here is the problem. Law schools are heavily burdened by information requests. The law schools will comply with any information request from the ABA because the ABA is their accrediting agency. If the ABA and NALP cover much of the same ground but use different terminology -- the ABA will have to invent its own to avoid infringing on NALP's detailed classification system -- then some schools may forgo the voluntary submission to NALP. Unfortunately, NALP cannot publish reliable industry-level statistics if law schools cannot spare the time and expense to fill out a duplicative information request.”).
22 Rachel Zahorsky, “NALP Backs Off Threat to Sue ABA, Renews Spirit of Collaboration,” ABA Journal, August 5, 2011, http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/aba_and_nalp_renew_collaboration_efforts_at_aba_annual_meeting/.
23Incredibly, the ABA, despite Villanova’s acknowledgment that it systematically misrepresented its students’ median LSATs and GPAs for an extended period of time, essentially slapped the school on the wrist, requiring that it merely post a “public censure” on its website for the next two years. See e.g., Elie Mystal, “Villanova Might Need A Kiss From Mommy Since The ABA Slapped Their Wrist Wreally Wreally Whard,” Abovethelaw.com, August 15, 2011, http://abovethelaw.com/2011/08/villanova-might-need-a-kiss-from-mommy-since-the-aba-slapped-their-wrist-wreally-wreally-whard/ (“We shouldn’t be surprised that the American Bar
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University of Illinois College of Law has recently admitted to grossly inflating their reported
median LSAT score and grade point average that were posted on its website.24 Rather, just as
publicly-held companies must independently audit their financial statements so as to ensure the
integrity of the marketplace, the same must be demanded of law schools so as to ensure that
prospective students -- i.e. consumers -- are making well-informed, carefully-considered
decisions based on 100-percent accurate information.
CLASS ACTION ALLEGATIONS
93. This action is brought and may properly be maintained as a class action pursuant
to Rule 23(b)(2) and (b)(3) of the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure. Plaintiffs bring this action,
on behalf of themselves and all other similarly situated, as representative members of the
following proposed class (the “Class”):
All persons who are either presently enrolled or have been enrolled in a JD program at
any Thomas Cooley campus anytime since August 11, 2005.
94. Excluded from the Class are Defendants, Thomas Cooley, its employees, officers
and directors, the Judge(s) assigned to this case, and the attorneys of record in this case.
Plaintiffs reserve the right to amend the Class definition if discovery and further investigation
reveal that the Class should be expanded or otherwise modified.
Association barely cares about law schools misleading prospective law students when the organization doesn’t even really seem to mind when law school lie directly to the ABA itself. The Villanova Law LSAT scandal has been resolved, and boy are you going to be underwhelmed by the penalties associated with lying to the ABA for four years.”) 24Karen Sloan, “Illinois Acknowledges Goosing Credentials of Incoming Students,” National Law Journal, September 19, 2011, http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202514918155&src=EMC-Email&et=editorial&bu=National%20Law%20Journal&pt=NLJ.com-%20Daily%20Headlines&cn=20110920nl.
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95. For the foregoing reasons, this action fulfills the standards and requirements as
outlined in Rule 23(b)(2) and (b)(3) of the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure:
A. The Parties are Numerous and Easily Ascertainable
96. The proposed Class is so numerous that it is manifestly impracticable to bring
them all before the court. Though the exact number and identities of the Class is unknown at this
time, they can be ascertained through appropriate discovery, and likely contain thousands of
people, as nearly one thousand students graduate from Thomas Cooley each year. The number
and identities of other Class members may be determined from Defendants’ records and files,
and potential Class members may easily be notified about the pendency of this action.
B. Common Questions of Law and Facts Predominate
97. This action presents questions of law and facts common to the Class, including,
but not limited to, the following:
a. Whether Defendants are engaged in deceptive, misleading, unfair,
fraudulent and/or otherwise unlawful practices through their non-disclosure of material facts and
affirmative misleading statements regarding post-graduate employment data and salary
information, and by specifically representing that approximately 76-82 percent of their graduates
secure employment within nine months of graduation at a salary of roughly $50,000;
b. Whether Defendants know the true and real percentage of recent graduates
who secure full-time, permanent employment for which a JD degree is required or preferred and
are, therefore, gainfully employed, and if that number is substantially lower than 76-82 percent;
c. Whether Defendants know the true mean salary of their graduates, and if
that number is substantially lower than $50,000;
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d. Whether Defendants’ conduct violated the MCPA and constitute fraud,
constructive fraud and/or negligent misrepresentation, as alleged herein;
e. Whether Plaintiffs and Class members are entitled to recover actual
damages as a result of the actions alleged herein;
f. Whether Plaintiffs and members of the Class are entitled to recover
restitution of tuition monies remitted to Defendants as a result of the actions alleged herein;
g. Whether Plaintiffs and members of the Class are entitled to ancillary
relief, including the disgorgement of unearned profits, as a result of the actions alleged herein;
h. Whether Plaintiffs and Class members of the Class are entitled to recover
punitive damages as a result of the actions alleged herein;
i. Whether Plaintiff and Class members are entitled to an award of
reasonable attorneys’ fees, pre-judgment interest and costs of this suit;
j. Whether Defendants should be forced to retain independent, non-related
third-parties to audit and verify their post-graduate employment data and salary information; and
k. Whether Defendants should be enjoined from continuing to make false
and misleading representations and omissions regarding their post-graduate employment data
and salary information.
C. Plaintiffs’ Claims Are Typical of the Class
98. Plaintiffs’ claims are typical of the claims and of the members of the Class
because they have all been damaged in the same manner and way as a result of Defendants’
failure to disclose material facts and policies of misrepresentation and omissions. Accordingly,
the interests of the representative Plaintiffs are co-extensive with the interests of each Class
member, and all have a common right of recovery based upon the same facts.
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D. The Class Representatives Can Adequately Represent the Class
99. Plaintiffs are adequate representatives of the Class because Plaintiffs are members
of the Class and their interests do not conflict with the interests of the Class. The interests of the
Class will be fairly and adequately protected by Plaintiffs and their undersigned counsel, who are
competent and experienced in the prosecution of class action litigation.
E. A Class Action Provides a Substantial Benefit to the Courts and Litigants
100. Should individual Class members be required to bring separate actions, courts
throughout Michigan would be confronted by a multiplicity of lawsuits, thus burdening the court
system while also creating the risk of inconsistent rulings and contradictory judgments. In
contrast to proceeding on a case-by-case basis, in which inconsistent results would magnify the
delay and expense to all parties and the court system, this class action will present far fewer
management difficulties while providing unitary adjudication, economies of scale and
comprehensive supervision by a single court.
101. Members of the Class almost invariably lack the means to pay attorneys to
prosecute their claims individually. Given the complexity of the issues presented here,
individual claims are not sufficiently sizeable to attract the interests of highly able and dedicated
attorneys who will prosecute them on a contingency basis. Only by aggregating claims can
Plaintiffs gain the leverage necessary to pursue a just and global resolution of the issues raised in
this Complaint.
102. WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs, on behalf of themselves and the Class, pray for an
order certifying the Class and appointing Plaintiffs and their counsel of record to represent the
Class.
FIRST CAUSE OF ACTION
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(Against All Defendants for Violations of the Consumer Protection Act, MCLS §445.901, et seq.)
103. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference each and every allegation set forth above as if
fully stated herein.
104. Defendants’ actions constitute unlawful, unfair, deceptive and fraudulent
actions/practices as defined by the Consumer Protection Act, MCLS §445.901, et seq. or the
MCPA, as they occurred in the course of trade or commerce.
105. Plaintiffs did not enroll in Thomas Cooley with the intention of using their JD
degree for an ongoing business or to start a non-legal business, but rather intended to use their JD
degree to prospectively better themselves and their personal circumstances through the
attainment of full-time employment in the legal sector.
106. As part of its fraudulent marketing practices and recruitment program, Thomas
Cooley engaged in a pattern and practice of knowingly and intentionally making numerous false
representations and omissions of material facts, with the intent to deceive and fraudulently
induce reliance by Plaintiffs and the members of the Class and cause them to pay inflated tuition.
These false representations violated the MCPA as follows:
a. Falsely stating that, depending on the year, approximately 80 percent of Thomas
Cooley graduates secured employment within nine months of graduation, when,
in fact, TCLS’s reported employment rate included temporary and part-time
employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or preferred –
employment Plaintiffs would have been eligible for even without obtaining a
TCLS degree and paying TCLS tuition;
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b. Falsely stating that, depending on the year, Thomas Cooley graduates earned, on
average, approximately $50,000, when, in fact, only a small subset of graduates
earned such salaries;
c. Failing to reveal that Thomas Cooley’s reported employment rate included
temporary and part-time employment and/or employment for which a JD was not
required or preferred, which made the posted statistics misleading and could not
be reasonably known to Plaintiffs;
d. Failing to provide the promised benefit of a Thomas Cooley JD degree, namely
that, depending on the year, approximately 80 percent of TCLS graduates secure
full-time, permanent employment for which a JD degree is required or preferred
and earned on average $50,000;
e. Making the material representation that, depending on the year, approximately 80
percent of Thomas Cooley graduates are employed nine months after graduation
and earn on average $50,000, thereby suggesting a state of affairs that was
different than it actually was because TCLS’s statistics included temporary and
part-time employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or
preferred; and
f. Failing to reveal that its reported employment rate included temporary and part-
time employment and/or employment for which a JD was not required or
preferred, facts that are material to the transaction (i.e. Plaintiffs decision to pay
TCLS’s tuition), and in fact resulted in Plaintiffs paying inflated tuition.
107. The Defendants’ above-alleged actions constitute unfair business practices since
the actions were deceptive, immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous, substantially injurious,
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and operate to the competitive disadvantage of other law schools. They are also likely to deceive
the public. Moreover, the injury to the Plaintiffs was substantial and outweighs the utility of the
Defendants’ practices.
108. The Defendants’ practices, in addition, are unfair and deceptive because they have
caused Plaintiffs and the Class substantial harm, which is not outweighed by any countervailing
benefits to consumers or competition, and is not an injury consumers themselves could have
reasonably avoided.
109. The Defendants’ acts and practices have misled and deceived the general public in
the past, and will continue to mislead and deceive the general public into the future, by, among
other things, causing them to apply to and enroll at Thomas Cooley under false pretenses.
110. Plaintiffs are entitled to preliminary and permanent injunctive relief ordering the
Defendants to immediately cease these unfair business practices, as well as disgorgement and
restitution to Plaintiffs of all revenue associated with their unfair practices, or such revenues as
the Court may find equitable and just, including the partial reimbursement of tuition. Plaintiffs
further request that the Court enters a declaratory judgment that Thomas Cooley’s representation
that approximately 80 percent of their graduates are employed and earn roughly $50,000
constitutes MCPA violations, insomuch as most of these graduates have not secured full-time,
permanent employment for which a JD degree is required or preferred. Plaintiffs also request
that they be awarded all attorneys to the extent permitted by the MCPA.
SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION
(Against All Defendants for Fraud)
111. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference each and every allegation set forth above as if
fully stated herein.
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112. As part of its fraudulent marketing practices and recruitment program, Thomas
Cooley engaged in a pattern and practice of knowingly and intentionally making numerous false
representations and omissions of material facts, with the intent to deceive and fraudulently
induce reliance by Plaintiffs and the members of the Class. These false representations and
omissions were uniform and identical in nature, and include, without limitation, the following:
a. Stating false placement rates during the recruitment and retention process,
including that, depending on the year, approximately 80 percent of TCLS
graduates secured employment within nine months of graduation;
b. Manipulating post-graduate employment data, so as to give the appearance that
the overwhelming majority of recent TCLS graduates secure full-time, permanent
employment for which a JD degree is required or preferred;
c. Grossly inflating the salaries earned by recent TCLS graduates, by reporting that
they earned approximately $50,000, even though only a small subset of graduates
earned such wages;
d. Disseminating false post-graduate employment data and salary information to
various third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US
News;
e. Making deceptive and misleading statements, representations and omissions
concerning the value of a TCLS law degree;
f. Making deceptive and misleading statements, representations and omissions
concerning the pace at which recent graduates can obtain gainful employment in
their chosen field; and
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g. Causing students to pay inflated tuition based on material misleading statement,
representations and omissions, including, specifically, that, depending on the year,
approximately 80 percent of TCLS graduates secure gainful employment and
earned approximately $50,000.
113. In general, Plaintiffs and members of the Class enrolled at Thomas Cooley for the
purpose of securing full-time, permanent employment upon graduation. Defendants’ acts and
practices, therefore, were material to Plaintiffs’ decision to enroll and attend TCLS, and were
justifiably relied upon by Plaintiffs, and further proximately caused Plaintiffs and other members
of the Class to pay inflated tuition.
114. Plaintiffs and members of the Class did in fact justifiably rely on these material
representations and omissions when deciding to enroll at Thomas Cooley. Specifically, Plaintiffs
reviewed and relied upon post-graduate employment data and salary information posted on
Thomas Cooley’s website and included in marketing brochures, as well as all such information
disseminated to third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US News,
and specifically relied on TCLS’s representations that, depending on the year, approximately 80
percent of its graduates were employed within nine months of graduation and earned a mean
salary of roughly $50,000.
115. The material representations and omissions were part of a common scheme,
practice and plan conceived and executed by Thomas Cooley to mislead, deceive and defraud
Plaintiffs and members of the Class. Defendants made these statements and representations
regarding their graduates’ employment data and salary information, including their graduates’
ability to secure full-time, permanent employment for which a JD degree is required or preferred,
knowing full well they were false, untrue, fraudulent and deceptive. In fact, Defendants know
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that the overwhelming majority of their graduates fail to secure gainful employment following
graduation, and are forced to take jobs incommensurate to their education level.
116. Plaintiffs were, at all relevant times, ignorant of the true facts and did not know
that in actuality few Thomas Cooley graduates secure full-time, permanent employment for
which a JD degree is required or preferred. Had Plaintiffs known of the dire financial straits
faced by the overwhelming majority of TCLS students following graduation, and that in fact
substantially fewer than 80 percent of Thomas Cooley graduates secure full-time, permanent
employment for which a JD degree is required or preferred or earned approximately $50,000,
they would never have enrolled at Thomas Cooley and incurred tens of thousands of dollars in
non-dischargeable debt.
117. In addition, Thomas Cooley occupies a fiduciary position as educators and owes a
heightened duty of care to Plaintiffs and members of the Class to act in good faith and engage in
fair dealings. Likewise, by virtue of the fact that many of Thomas Cooley’s staff and faculty are
attorneys and members of the Michigan Bar, they have certain ethical obligations and
responsibilities to Plaintiffs and members of the Class. Similarly, the existence of a Financial
Aid Office and the fact that Thomas Cooley provides advice and assistance to students on how to
procure the necessary financing to fund their education, establishes a fiduciary duty to act in
good faith and engage in fair dealings. Defendants breached these heightened duties of care by
making a series of material misstatements and omissions regarding their graduates’ employment
data and salary information.
118. The above-referenced material misstatements and omissions were knowingly,
willfully, intentionally, maliciously, oppressively, and fraudulently undertaken with the express
purpose and intention of defrauding Plaintiffs and the members of the Class, as well as to the
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substantial benefit of the Defendants. Consequently, Plaintiffs and members of the Class are
entitled to punitive damages, the disgorgement of tuition monies, the reimbursement of
attorneys’ fees and all other monetary and equitable relief as the Court may find equitable and
just.
THIRD CAUSE OF ACTION
(Against All Defendants for Negligent Misrepresentation)
119. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference each and every allegation set forth above as if
fully stated herein.
120. As part of its fraudulent marketing practices and recruitment program, Thomas
Cooley engaged in a pattern and practice of knowingly and intentionally making numerous false
representations and omissions of material facts, with the intent to deceive and fraudulently
induce reliance by Plaintiffs and the members of the Class. These false representations and
omissions were uniform and identical in nature, and include, without limitation, the following:
a. Stating false placement rates during the recruitment and retention process,
including that, depending on the year, approximately 80 percent of TCLS
graduates secured employment within nine months of graduation;
b. Manipulating post-graduate employment data, so as to give the appearance that
the overwhelming majority of recent TCLS graduates secure full-time, permanent
employment for which a JD degree is required or preferred;
c. Grossly inflating the salaries earned by recent TCLS graduates, by reporting that
they earned approximately $50,000, even though only a small subset of graduates
earned such wages;
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d. Disseminating false post-graduate employment data and salary information to
various third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US
News;
e. Making deceptive and misleading statements, representations and omissions
concerning the value of a TCLS law degree;
f. Making deceptive and misleading statements, representations and omissions
concerning the pace at which recent graduates can obtain gainful employment in
their chosen field; and
g. Causing students to pay inflated tuition based on material misleading statement,
representations and omissions, including, specifically, that, depending on the year,
approximately 80 percent of TCLS graduates secure gainful employment and
earned approximately $50,000.
121. In general, Plaintiffs and members of the Class enrolled at Thomas Cooley for the
purpose of securing full-time, permanent employment upon graduation. Defendants’ acts and
practices, therefore, were material to Plaintiffs’ decision to enroll and attend TCLS, and were
justifiably relied upon by Plaintiffs, and further proximately caused Plaintiffs and other members
of the Class to pay inflated tuition.
122. Plaintiffs and members of the Class did in fact justifiably rely on these material
representations and omissions when deciding to enroll at Thomas Cooley. Specifically, Plaintiffs
reviewed and relied upon post-graduate employment data and salary information posted on
Thomas Cooley’s website and included in marketing brochures, as well as all such information
disseminated to third-party data clearinghouses and publications, such as the ABA and US News,
and specifically relied on TCLS’s representations that, depending on the year, approximately 80
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percent of its graduates were employed within nine months of graduation and earned a mean
salary of roughly $50,000.
123. The material representations and omissions were part of a common scheme,
practice and plan conceived and executed by Thomas Cooley to mislead, deceive and defraud
Plaintiffs and members of the Class. Defendants made these statements and representations
regarding their graduates’ employment data and salary information, including their graduates’
ability to secure full-time, permanent employment for which a JD degree is required or preferred,
knowing full well they were false, untrue, fraudulent and deceptive. In fact, Defendants know
that the overwhelming majority of their graduates fail to secure gainful employment following
graduation, and are forced to take jobs incommensurate to their education level.
124. Plaintiffs were, at all relevant times, ignorant of the true facts and did not know
that in actuality few Thomas Cooley graduates secure full-time, permanent employment for
which a JD degree is required or preferred. Had Plaintiffs known of the dire financial straits
faced by the overwhelming majority of TCLS students following graduation, and that in fact
substantially fewer than 80 percent of Thomas Cooley graduates secure full-time, permanent
employment for which a JD degree is required or preferred or earned approximately $50,000,
they would never have enrolled at Thomas Cooley and incurred tens of thousands of dollars in
non-dischargeable debt.
125. In addition, Thomas Cooley occupies a fiduciary position as educators and owes a
heightened duty of care to Plaintiffs and members of the Class to act in good faith and engage in
fair dealings. Likewise, by virtue of the fact that many of Thomas Cooley’s staff and faculty are
attorneys and members of the Michigan Bar, they have certain ethical obligations and
responsibilities to Plaintiffs and members of the Class. Similarly, the existence of a Financial
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Aid Office and the fact that Thomas Cooley provides advice and assistance to students on how to
procure the necessary financing to fund their education, establishes a fiduciary duty to act in
good faith and engage in fair dealings. Defendants breached these heightened duties of care by
making a series of material misstatements and omissions regarding their graduates’ employment
data and salary information.
126. The above-referenced material misstatements and omissions were knowingly,
willfully, intentionally, maliciously, oppressively, and fraudulently undertaken with the express
purpose and intention of defrauding Plaintiffs and the members of the Class, as well as to the
substantial benefit of the Defendants. Consequently, Plaintiffs and members of the Class are
entitled to punitive damages, the disgorgement of tuition monies, the reimbursement of
attorneys’ fees and all other monetary and equitable relief as the Court may find equitable and
just.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs, on behalf of themselves and members of the Class, pray for
relief and judgment against Defendants Thomas Cooley and Does 1 though 20 as follows:
1. For preliminary and injunctive relief enjoining Defendants, their agents, servants,
employees and all persons acting in concert with them from continuing to engage in
their unlawful recruitment program and manipulation of post-graduate employment
data and salary information, and all other unfair, unlawful and /or fraudulent business
practices alleged above and that may yet be discovered in the prosecution of this
action;
2. For certification of the Class;
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3. For restitution and disgorgement of partial tuition monies remitted to Thomas Cooley,
totaling $300 million, which is the difference between the inflated tuition paid by
Class members based on the material misrepresentations that, depending on the year,
approximately 80 percent of graduates are employed within nine months of
graduation and earn roughly $50,000, and the true value of a Thomas Cooley degree;
4. For damages;
5. For punitive damages;
6. For an accounting by Defendants for any and all profits derived by them from the
herein-alleged unlawful, unfair, and/or fraudulent conduct and/or business practices;
7. For injunctive relief ordering that Thomas Cooley retains unrelated, independent
third-parties to audit and verify post-graduate employment data and salary
information, and that Thomas Cooley disclose the true percentage of graduates who
secure full-time, permanent employment for which a JD degree is required or
preferred;
8. For attorneys’ fees and expenses pursuant to all applicable laws;;
9. For prejudgment interest; and
10. For such other and further relief as the Court may deem proper.
DATED: November 9, 2011 RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
THE HYDER LAW FIRM, P.C. By: /s/ Steven Hyder Steven Hyder (P69875) The Hyder Law Firm, P.C.
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PO Box 2242 Monroe, MI 48161 hyders@hyderlawfirm.com Phone (734) 757-4586 David Anziska Law Offices of David Anziska 305 Broadway, 9th Fl. New York, NY 10007 Phone (212) 822-1496
Facsimile (212) 822-1437 Jesse Strauss (admitted NY – 4182002) Strauss Law, PLLC
305 Broadway, 9th Fl. New York, NY 10007 Phone (212) 822-1496
Facsimile (212) 822-1437 Counsel for Plaintiffs, individually
and for all others similarly situated
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DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL
Plaintiffs hereby demand a jury trial on all causes of action so triable.
DATED: November 9, 2011 RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
THE HYDER LAW FIRM, P.C. By: /s/ Steven Hyder Steven Hyder (P69875) The Hyder Law Firm, P.C. PO Box 2242 Monroe, MI 48161 hyders@hyderlawfirm.com Phone (734) 757-4586 David Anziska Law Offices of David Anziska 305 Broadway, 9th Fl. New York, NY 10007 Phone (212) 822-1496
Facsimile (212) 822-1437 Jesse Strauss (admitted NY – 4182002) Strauss Law, PLLC
305 Broadway, 9th Fl. New York, NY 10007 Phone (212) 822-1496
Facsimile (212) 822-1437 Counsel for Plaintiffs, individually
and for all others similarly situated
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EXHIBIT D THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL
(FEB. 1, 2012)
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ALM Properties, Inc. Page printed from: http://www.nlj.com Back to Article
Fresh round of litigation targets 12 law schools over jobs data The team of lawyers behind proposed class actions against the Thomas M. Cooley School of Law and New York Law School have followed through with their threat to sue even more schools. Karen Sloan February 01, 2012 Note: This report has been updated to include comments by plaintiffs, their attorneys and two of the targeted law schools. The team of lawyers behind proposed class actions against the Thomas M. Cooley School of Law and New York Law School have followed through with their threat to sue even more schools. New York attorneys David Anziska and Jesse Strauss — along with consumer-protection lawyers in Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, Sacramento and New Jersey — on Wednesday filed suits against 12 law schools in state and federal courts around the country, claiming that they inflated their graduate employment data. The complaints seek class action status, monetary damages and changes in the way the law schools report and audit employment data. The targeted schools were Albany Law School of Union University; Brooklyn Law School; California Western School of Law; Chicago-Kent College of Law; DePaul University College of Law; Florida Coastal School of Law; Golden Gate University School of Law; Hofstra University Maurice A. Deane School of Law; The John Marshall Law School; University of San Francisco School of Law; Southwestern Law School; and Widener University School of Law. Additional lawsuits will be forthcoming, according to Anziska. "Our goal is that every few months we will file between 20 and 25 lawsuits. The key, right now, is to bring as many law schools as possible into the fray," he said. "Law schools are banking on the fact that their graduates will not sue them," he added. "I think today dispels that notion." Anziska and Strauss unveiled plans to sue the schools — with the exception of Golden Gate — in early October. At the time, they said they also planned to sue the University of Baltimore School of Law, Pace Law School and St. John's University School of Law. Those three schools were not targeted in the subsequent lawsuits, however. Strauss said that a suit against Baltimore is coming but requires filing of a notice of claims with the Maryland treasurer. The other two schools had at least one plaintiff signed on, but the attorneys were waiting for at least three named plaintiffs before filing suit, Strauss said. Altogether, 51 plaintiffs have signed on to the 12 suits, in addition to the 22 plaintiffs in pending litigation against Cooley, New York Law School and the Thomas Jefferson School of Law. The suit against Thomas Jefferson was the first filed, in May, and is in discovery. The suit against DePaul has the largest number of plaintiffs, eight. Florida Coastal has the next largest, six. Officials at most of the targeted schools had not yet seen the complaints as of late Wednesday. Connie Mayer, interim president and dean of Albany Law School, said that institution follows the reporting protocols set out by the American Bar Association — a defense also offered by the three law schools that have already been sued. "We have documentation that supports the accuracy of our data," she said. "We are surprised that we are being sued over this issue without ever having been asked to see our documentation. Albany Law School has always reported above the
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Copyright 2012. ALM Media Properties, LLC. All rights reserved.
industry standard requirements: We collect and report on data for at least 98% of our graduates." Kristen McMahon, director of public relations at Hofstra, declined to address the complaint's merits, but insisted the schools has followed reporting standards set by the ABA and the National Association for Law Placement, NALP. Southwestern Law School stands by the employment data it has reported to the ABA and U.S. News & World Report and has published on its Web site, said Leslie Steinberg, the associate dean for public affairs. "We've always provided accurate data," she said. "We gather as much information as comprehensively as possible. We update our Web site when more information becomes available." Three of the 51 named plaintiffs spoke during a telephone news conference, recounting the role rosy employment statistics played in their decisions to attend law school. All three struggled to find gainful employment in the law after graduation; one joined the Army to help pay off $150,000 in law school debt. That plaintiff, Audra Awai, graduated from Florida Coastal in 2008 and abandoned a law career after seeing former classmates flounder in the job market. "I hope this lawsuit will encourage law schools to be more truthful in the future," she said. Adam Bevelacqua, a 2011 graduate of Brooklyn Law School, praised the education he received there but said the school misled him about his job prospects. "The school advertised very high employment numbers, which stated that only between 5 and 10 percent of graduates did not find legal employment within nine months," he said. "It turns out that I can't get any work in the legal field at all — not even document review work." Like the three previously filed suits against law schools, the new complaints charge that the schools deceived prospective students by hiring recent graduates so they could be counted as employed; counting graduates in non-legal jobs as employed; counting students in temporary jobs as employed; and reporting salary averages based upon a small number of high earners. All of the suits were filed in state court, with the exception of the suit against Widener, which was filed in the U.S. district court in New Jersey. Their language differs slightly, according to the differences in each state's consumer protection laws. Strauss, Anziska and attorney Frank Raimond are handling the cases against Albany, Hofstra and Brooklyn Law School. Strauss graduated from Brooklyn in 2003. The Clinton Law Firm in Chicago is handling the cases against John Marshall, DePaul and Chicago-Kent. Attorney Ed Clinton Sr. represents plaintiffs against his own alma mater, John Marshall, from which he graduated in 1953. New Jersey firm Stone & Magnanini represents plaintiffs in the case against Widener. Miami firm Concepcion Martinez & Bellido is handling the case against Florida Coastal. California firms Finkelstein Thompson and Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff represent the plaintiffs against Golden Gate, the University of San Francisco, Southwestern Law School and California Western. "We strongly believe these cases have merit," said Finkelstein Thompson attorney Rosemary Rivas. Contact Karen Sloan at ksloan@alm.com.
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EXHIBIT E PATTERSON & SHERIDAN, LLP
BIOGRAPHY OF BRIAN LOKER
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Page 1 of 2Patterson & Sheridan, LLP | Attorneys at Law
3/7/2012http://pattersonsheridan.com/index.php/attorneys/detail/brian_loker
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BRIAN LOKER Associate
Intellectual Property Law
250 Cambridge Avenue
Suite 300
Palo Alto, CA 94306
Phone: 650.330.2310
Fax: 650.330.2314
Direct Line: 650.384.4430
Email: bloker@pattersonsheridan.com
PROFILE Brian’s practice focuses on patent preparation, patent prosecution, and
opinion preparation.¬ Brian graduated from the University of California,
Berkeley in 2002 with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and an
emphasis on dynamic control systems.¬ His technical expertise in mechanical
engineering, electrical engineering and computer science enables him to serve
a wide variety of clients.¬ His past technical experience includes five years in
the defense and semiconductor industries working with Meggit Defense Systems
and Orthodyne Electronics.¬ At DePaul University College of Law, Brian spent
two summers studying abroad in Beijing, China, as well as participating in a
Chinese Intellectual Property¬Legal clinic in conjunction with a foreign law
firm.¬ Brian graduated with a Juris Doctor in 2009.
EDUCATION J.D., DePaul University of Law, 2009 with a minor in With a certificate in
Intellectual Property Law: Patents
B.S., Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 2002
PRACTICE AREAS Electronics & Electrical Engineering
Mechanical Devices
Computer Science
ADMISSIONS & MEMBERSHIPS American Intellectual Property Law Association
State Bar of California
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Page 2 of 2Patterson & Sheridan, LLP | Attorneys at Law
3/7/2012http://pattersonsheridan.com/index.php/attorneys/detail/brian_loker
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